The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

of our own day speak of them, being no longer blinded by desire: this alderman, to wit.”

      “Oh, novice of novices,” cried Denys, “not to have seen why that old fool rails so on the poor things! One day, out of the millions of women he blackens, one did prefer some other man to him: for which solitary piece of bad taste, and ten to one 'twas good taste, he doth bespatter creation's fairer half, thereby proving what? le peu que sont les hommes.”

      “I see women have a shrewd champion in thee,” said Gerard, with a smile. But the next moment inquired gravely why he had not told him all this before.

      Denys grinned. “Had the girl said 'Ay,' why then I had told thee straight. But 'tis a rule with us soldiers never to publish our defeats: 'tis much if after each check we claim not a victory.”

      “Now that is true,” said Gerard. “Young as I am, I have seen this; that after every great battle the generals on both sides go to the nearest church, and sing each a Te Deum for the victory; methinks a Te Martem, or Te Bellonam, or Te Mercurium, Mercury being the god of lies, were more fitting.”

      “Pas si bete,” said Denys approvingly. “Hast a good eye: canst see a steeple by daylight. So now tell me how thou hast fared in this town all day.”

      “Come,” said Gerard, “'tis well thou hast asked me: for else I had never told thee.” He then related in full how he had been arrested, and by what a providential circumstance he had escaped long imprisonment or speedy conflagration.

      His narrative produced an effect he little expected or desired.

      “I am a traitor,” cried Denys. “I left thee in a strange place to fight thine own battles, while I shook the dice with those jades. Now take thou this sword and pass it through my body forthwith.”

      “What for in Heaven's name?” inquired Gerard.

      “For an example,” roared Denys. “For a warning to all false loons that profess friendship, and disgrace it.”

      “Oh, very well,” said Gerard. “Yes. Not a bad notion. Where will you have it?”

      “Here, through my heart; that is, where other men have a heart, but I none, or a Satanic false one.”

      Gerard made a motion to run him through, and flung his arms round his neck instead. “I know no way to thy heart but this, thou great silly thing.”

      Denys uttered an exclamation, then hugged him warmly—and, quite overcome by this sudden turn of youthful affection and native grace, gulped out in a broken voice, “Railest on women—and art—like them—with thy pretty ways. Thy mother's milk is in thee still. Satan would love thee, or—le bon Dieu would kick him out of hell for shaming it. Give me thy hand! Give me thy hand! May” (a tremendous oath) “if I let thee out of my sight till Italy.”

      And so the staunch friends were more than reconciled after their short tiff.

      The next day the thieves were tried. The pieces de conviction were reduced in number, to the great chagrin of the little clerk, by the interment of the bones. But there was still a pretty show. A thief's hand struck off flagrante delicto; a murdered woman's hair; the Abbot's axe, and other tools of crime. The skulls, etc., were sworn to by the constables who had found them. Evidence was lax in that age and place. They all confessed but the landlord. And Manon was called to bring the crime home to him. Her evidence was conclusive. He made a vain attempt to shake her credibility by drawing from her that her own sweetheart had been one of the gang, and that she had held her tongue so long as he was alive. The public prosecutor came to the aid of his witness, and elicited that a knife had been held to her throat, and her own sweetheart sworn with solemn oaths to kill her should she betray them, and that this terrible threat, and not the mere fear of death, had glued her lips.

      The other thieves were condemned to be hanged, and the landlord to be broken on the wheel. He uttered a piercing cry when his sentence was pronounced.

      As for poor Manon, she became the subject of universal criticism. Nor did opinion any longer run dead in her favour; it divided into two broad currents. And strange to relate, the majority of her own sex took her part, and the males were but equally divided; which hardly happens once in a hundred years. Perhaps some lady will explain the phenomenon. As for me, I am a little shy of explaining things I don't understand. It has become so common. Meantime, had she been a lover of notoriety, she would have been happy, for the town talked of nothing but her. The poor girl, however, had but one wish to escape the crowd that followed her, and hide her head somewhere where she could cry over her “pendard,” whom all these proceedings brought vividly back to her affectionate remembrance. Before he was hanged he had threatened her life; but she was not one of your fastidious girls, who love their male divinities any the less for beating them, kicking them, or killing them, but rather the better, provided these attentions are interspersed with occasional caresses; so it would have been odd indeed had she taken offence at a mere threat of that sort. He had never threatened her with a rival. She sobbed single-mindedly.

      Meantime the inn was filled with thirsters for a sight of her, who feasted and drank, to pass away the time till she should deign to appear. When she had been sobbing some time, there was a tap at her door, and the landlord entered with a proposal. “Nay, weep not, good lass, your fortune it is made an you like. Say the word, and you are chambermaid of 'The White Hart.'”

      “Nay, nay,” said Manon with a fresh burst of grief. “Never more will I be a servant in an inn. I'll go to my mother.”

      The landlord consoled and coaxed her: and she became calmer, but none the less determined against his proposal.

      The landlord left her. But ere long he returned and made her another proposal. Would she be his wife, and landlady of “The White Hart”?

      “You do ill to mock me,” said she sorrowfully.

      “Nay, sweetheart. I mock thee not. I am too old for sorry jests. Say you the word, and you are my partner for better for worse.”

      She looked at him, and saw he was in earnest: on this she suddenly rained hard to the memory of “le pendard”: the tears came in a torrent, being the last; and she gave her hand to the landlord of “The White Hart,” and broke a gold crown with him in sign of plighted troth.

      “We will keep it dark till the house is quiet,” said the landlord.

      “Ay,” said she; “but meantime prithee give me linen to hem, or work to do; for the time hangs on me like lead.”

      Her betrothed's eye brightened at this housewifely request, and he brought her up two dozen flagons of various sizes to clean and polish.

      She gathered complacency as she reflected that by a strange turn of fortune all this bright pewter was to be hers.

      Meantime the landlord went downstairs, and falling in with our friends drew them aside into the bar.

      He then addressed Denys with considerable solemnity. “We are old acquaintances, and you want not for sagacity: now advise me in a strait. My custom is somewhat declining: this girl Manon is the talk of the town; see how full the inn is to-night. She doth refuse to be my chambermaid. I have half a mind to marry her. What think you? shall I say the word?”

      Denys in reply merely open his eyes wide with amazement.

      The landlord turned to Gerard with a half-inquiring look,

      “Nay, sir,” said Gerard; “I am too young to advise my seniors and betters.”

      “No matter. Let us hear your thought.”

      “Well, sir, it was said of a good wife by the ancients, 'bene quae latuit, bene vixit,' that is, she is the best wife that is least talked of: but here 'male quae patuit' were as near the mark. Therefore, an you bear the lass good-will, why not club purses with Denys and me and convey her safe home with a dowry? Then mayhap some rustical person in her own place may be brought to wife her.”

      “Why so many words?” said Denys. “This old fox is not the ass he affects to be.”

      “Oh!