The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

cannot marry you I can.”

      “You?” said Margaret. “Why, I have seen him.”

      “But he is a friar.”

      “He was my husband, and my boy's father long ere he was a friar. And I have seen him, I've seen him.”

      Luke was thoroughly puzzled. “I'll tell you what,” said he; “I have got a cousin a lawyer. I'll go and ask him whether you are married or single.”

      “Nay, I shall ask my own heart, not a lawyer. So that is your regard for me; to go making me the town talk, oh, fie!”

      “That is done already without a word from me.”

      “But not by such as seek my respect. And if you do it, never come nigh me again.”

      “Ay,” said Luke, with a sigh, “you are like a dove to all the rest; but you are a hardhearted tyrant to me.”

      “'Tis your own fault, dear Luke, for wooing me. That is what lets me from being as kind to you as I desire, Luke, my bonny lad, listen to me. I am rich now; I can make my friends happy, though not myself. Look round the street, look round the parish. There is many a quean in it fairer than I twice told, and not spoiled with weeping. Look high; and take your choice. Speak you to the lass herself, and I'll speak to the mother; they shall not say thee nay; take my word for't.”

      “I see what ye mean,” said Luke, turning very red. “But if I can't have your liking, I will none o' your money. I was your servant when you were poor as I; and poorer. No; if you would liever be a friar's leman than an honest man's wife, you are not the woman I took you for: so part we withouten malice: seek you your comfort on yon road, where never a she did find it yet, and for me, I'll live and die a bachelor. Good even, mistress.”

      “Farewell, dear Luke; and God forgive you for saying that to me.”

      For some days Margaret dreaded, almost as much as she desired, the coming interview with Gerard. She said to herself, “I wonder not he keeps away a while; for so should I.” However, he would hear he was a father; and the desire to see their boy would overcome everything. “And,” said the poor girl to herself, “if so be that meeting does not kill me, I feel I shall be better after it than I am now.”

      But when day after day went by, and he was not heard of, a freezing suspicion began to crawl and creep towards her mind. What if his absence was intentional? What if he had gone to some cold-blooded monks his fellows, and they had told him never to see her more? The convent had ere this shown itself as merciless to true lovers as the grave itself.

      At this thought the very life seemed to die out of her.

      And now for the first time deep indignation mingled at times with her grief and apprehension. “Can he have ever loved me? To run from me and his boy without a word! Why, this poor Luke thinks more of me than he does.”

      While her mind was in this state, Giles came roaring. “I've hit the clout; our Gerard is Vicar of Gouda.”

      A very brief sketch of the dwarf's court life will suffice to prepare the reader for his own account of this feat. Some months before he went to court his intelligence had budded. He himself dated the change from a certain 8th of June, when, swinging by one hand along with the week's washing on a tight rope in the drying ground, something went crack inside his head; and lo! intellectual powers unchained. At court his shrewdness and bluntness of speech, coupled with his gigantic voice and his small stature, made him a Power: without the last item I fear they would have conducted him to that unpopular gymnasium, the gallows. The young Duchess of Burgundy, and Marie the heiress apparent, both petted him, as great ladies have petted dwarfs in all ages; and the court poet melted butter by the six-foot rule, and poured enough of it down his back to stew Goliah in. He even amplified, versified, and enfeebled certain rough and ready sentences dictated by Giles.

      The centipedal prolixity that resulted went to Eli by letter, thus entitled—

      “The high and puissant Princess Marie

      of Bourgogne her lytel jantilman hys

      complaynt of y' Coort, and

      praise of a rusticall lyfe, versificated, and empapyred

      by me the lytel jantilman's right lovynge

      and obsequious servitor, etc.”

      But the dwarf reached his climax by a happy mixture of mind and muscle; thus:

      The day before a grand court joust he challenged the Duke's giant to a trial of strength. This challenge made the gravest grin, and aroused expectation.

      Giles had a lofty pole planted ready, and at the appointed hour went up it like a squirrel, and by strength of arm made a right angle with his body, and so remained: then slid down so quickly, that the high and puissant princess squeaked, and hid her face in her hands, not to see the demise of her pocket-Hercules.

      The giant effected only about ten feet, then looked ruefully up and ruefully down, and descended, bathed in perspiration to argue the matter.

      “It was not the dwarf's greater strength, but his smaller body.”

      The spectators received this excuse with loud derision. There was the fact, the dwarf was great at mounting a pole: the giant only great at excuses. In short Giles had gauged their intellects: with his own body no doubt.

      “Come,” said he, “an ye go to that, I'll wrestle ye, my lad, if so be you will let me blindfold your eyne.”

      The giant, smarting under defeat, and thinking he could surely recover it by this means, readily consented.

      “Madam,” said Giles, “see you yon blind Samson? At a signal from me he shall make me a low obeisance, and unbonnet to me.”

      “How may that be, being blinded?” inquired a maid of honour.

      “I'll wager on Giles for one,” said the princess.

      “That is my affair.”

      When several wagers were laid pro and con, Giles hit the giant in the bread-basket. He went double (the obeisance), and his bonnet fell off.

      The company yelled with delight at this delicate stroke of wit, and Giles took to his heels. The giant followed as soon as he could recover his breath and tear off his bandage. But it was too late; Giles had prepared a little door in the wall, through which he could pass, but not a giant, and had coloured it so artfully, it looked like a wall; this door he tore open, and went headlong through, leaving no vestige but this posy, written very large upon the reverse of his trick door—

      Long limbs, big body, panting wit

      By wee and wise is bet and bit

      After this Giles became a Force.

      He shall now speak for himself.

      Finding Margaret unable to believe the good news, and sceptical as to the affairs of Holy Church being administered by dwarfs, he narrated as follows:

      “When the princess sent for me to her bedroom as of custom, to keep her out of languor, I came not mirthful nor full of country dicts, as is my wont, but dull as lead.

      “'Why, what aileth thee?' quo' she. 'Art sick?' 'At heart,' quo' I. 'Alas, he is in love,' quo' she. Whereat five brazen hussies, which they call them maids of honour, did giggle loud. 'Not so mad as that,' said I, 'seeing what I see at court of women folk.'

      “'There, ladies,' quo' the princess, 'best let him a be. 'Tis a liberal mannikin, and still giveth more than he taketh of saucy words.'

      “'In all sadness,' quo' she, 'what is the matter?'

      “I told her I was meditating, and what perplexed me was, that other folk could now and then keep their word, but princes never.

      “'Heyday,' says she, 'thy shafts fly high this morn.' I told her, 'Ay, for they hit the Truth.'

      “She said I was as keen as keen; but it became not me to put riddles to her, nor her to answer