The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

“Let us march, then,” replied Denys, with paternal indulgence.

He had a brief paroxysm of yawns; then made a small bundle of bears' ears, rolling them up in a strip of the skin, cut for the purpose; and they took the road.

Gerard leaned on his axe, and propped by Denys on the other side, hobbled along, not without sighs.

“I hate pain.” said Gerard viciously.

“Therein you show judgment,” replied papa smoothly.

It was a clear starlight night; and soon the moon rising revealed the end of the wood at no great distance: a pleasant sight, since Dusseldorf they knew was but a short league further.

At the edge of the wood they came upon something so mysterious that they stopped to gaze at it, before going up to it. Two white pillars rose in the air, distant a few paces from each other; and between them stood many figures, that looked like human forms.

“I go no farther till I know what this is,” said Gerard, in an agitated whisper. “Are they effigies of the saints, for men to pray to on the road? or live robbers waiting to shoot down honest travellers? Nay, living men they cannot be, for they stand on nothing that I see. Oh! Denys, let us turn back till daybreak; this is no mortal sight.”

Denys halted, and peered long and keenly. “They are men,” said he, at last. Gerard was for turning back all the more. “But men that will never hurt us, nor we them. Look not to their feet, for that they stand on!”

“Where, then, i' the name of all the saints?”

“Look over their heads,” said Denys gravely.

Following this direction, Gerard presently discerned the outline of a dark wooden beam passing from pillar to pillar; and as the pair got nearer, walking now on tiptoe, one by one dark snake-like cords came out in the moonlight, each pendent from the beam to a dead man, and tight as wire.

Now as they came under this awful monument of crime and wholesale vengeance a light air swept by, and several of the corpses swung, or gently gyrated, and every rope creaked. Gerard shuddered at this ghastly salute. So thoroughly had the gibbet, with its sickening load, seized and held their eyes, that it was but now they perceived a fire right underneath, and a living figure sitting huddled over it. His axe lay beside him, the bright blade shining red in the glow. He was asleep.

Gerard started, but Denys only whispered, “courage, comrade, here is a fire.”

“Ay! but there is a man at it.”

“There will soon be three;” and he began to heap some wood on it that the watcher had prepared; during which the prudent Gerard seized the man's axe, and sat down tight on it, grasping his own, and examining the sleeper. There was nothing outwardly distinctive in the man. He wore the dress of the country folk, and the hat of the district, a three-cornered hat called a Brunswicker, stiff enough to turn a sword cut, and with a thick brass hat-band. The weight of the whole thing had turned his ears entirely down, like a fancy rabbit's in our century; but even this, though it spoiled him as a man, was nothing remarkable. They had of late met scores of these dog's-eared rustics. The peculiarity was, this clown watching under a laden gallows. What for?

Denys, if he felt curious, would not show it; he took out two bears' ears from his bundle, and running sticks through them, began to toast them. “'Twill be eating coined money,” said he; “for the burgomaster of Dusseldorf had given us a rix-dollar for these ears, as proving the death of their owners; but better a lean purse than a lere stomach.”

“Unhappy man!” cried Gerard, “could you eat food here?”

“Where the fire is lighted there must the meat roast, and where it roasts there must it be eaten; for nought travels worse than your roasted meat.”

“Well, eat thou, Denys, an thou canst! but I am cold and sick; there is no room for hunger in my heart after what mine eyes have seen,” and he shuddered over the fire. “Oh! how they creak! and who is this man, I wonder? what an ill-favoured churl!”

Denys examined him like a connoisseur looking at a picture, and in due course delivered judgment. “I take him to be of the refuse of that company, whereof these (pointing carelessly upward) were the cream, and so ran their heads into danger.

“At that rate, why not stun him before he wakes?” and Gerard fidgeted where he sat.

Denys opened his eyes with humorous surprise. “For one who sets up for a milksop you have the readiest hand. Why should two stun one? tush! he wakes: note now what he says at waking, and tell me.”

These last words were hardly whispered when the watcher opened his eyes. At sight of the fire made up, and two strangers eyeing him keenly, he stared, and there was a severe and pretty successful effort to be calm; still a perceptible tremor ran all over him. Soon he manned himself, and said gruffly. “Good morrow. But at the very moment of saying it he missed his axe, and saw how Gerard was sitting upon it, with his own laid ready to his hand. He lost countenance again directly. Denys smiled grimly at this bit of byplay.

“Good morrow!” said Gerard quietly, keeping his eye on him.

The watcher was now too ill at ease to be silent. “You make free with my fire,” said he; but he added in a somewhat faltering voice, “you are welcome.”

Denys whispered Gerard. The watcher eyed them askant.

“My comrade says, sith we share your fire, you shall share his meat.”

“So be it,” said the man warmly. “I have half a kid hanging on a bush hard by, I'll go fetch it;” and he arose with a cheerful and obliging countenance, and was retiring.

Denys caught up his crossbow, and levelled it at his head. The man fell on his knees.

Denys lowered his weapon, and pointed him back to his place. He rose and went back slowly and unsteadily, like one disjointed; and sick at heart as the mouse, that the cat lets go a little way, and then darts and replaces.

“Sit down, friend,” said Denys grimly, in French.

The man obeyed finger and tone, though he knew not a word of French.

“Tell him the fire is not big enough for more than thee. He will take my meaning.”

This being communicated by Gerard, the man grinned; ever since Denys spoke he had seemed greatly relieved. “I wist not ye were strangers,” said he to Gerard.

Denys cut a piece of bear's ear, and offered it with grace to him he had just levelled crossbow at.

He took it calmly, and drew a piece of bread from his wallet, and divided