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

were broad enough to bear it: for they made themselves not only comfortable but merry, and broke harmless jests over each other in turn. For instance, Denys's new shoes, though not in direct communication, had this day exploded with twin-like sympathy and unanimity. “Where do you buy your shoon, soldier?” asked one.

Denys looked askant at Gerard, and not liking the theme, shook it off. “I gather 'em off the trees by the roadside,” said he surlily.

“Then you gathered these too ripe,” said the hostess, who was only a fool externally.

“Ay, rotten ripe,” observed another, inspecting them.

Gerard said nothing, but pointed the circular satire by pantomime. He slily put out both his feet, one after another, under Denys's eye, with their German shoes, on which a hundred leagues of travel had produced no effect. They seemed hewn out of a rock.

At this, “I'll twist the smooth varlet's neck that sold me mine,” shouted Denys, in huge wrath, and confirmed the threat with singular oaths peculiar to the mediaeval military. The landlady put her fingers in her ears, thereby exhibiting the hand in a fresh attitude. “Tell me when he has done his orisons, somebody,” said she mincingly. And after that they fell to telling stories.

Gerard, when his turn came, told the adventure of Denys and Gerard at the inn in Domfront, and so well, that the hearers were rapt into sweet oblivion of the very existence of mijauree and hands. But this made her very uneasy, and she had recourse to her grand coup. This misdirected genius had for a twelvemonth past practised yawning, and could do it now at any moment so naturally as to set all creation gaping, could all creation have seen her. By this means she got in all her charms. For first she showed her teeth, then, out of good breeding, you know, closed her mouth with three taper fingers. So the moment Gerard's story got too interesting and absorbing, she turned to and made yawns, and “croix sur la bouche.”

This was all very fine: but Gerard was an artist, and artists are chilled by gaping auditors. He bore up against the yawns a long time; but finding they came from a bottomless reservoir, lost both heart and temper, and suddenly rising in mid narrative, said, “But I weary our hostess, and I am tired myself: so good night!” whipped a candle off the dresser, whispered Denys, “I cannot stand her,” and marched to bed in a moment.

The mijauree coloured and bit her lips. She had not intended her byplay for Gerard's eye: and she saw in a moment she had been rude, and silly, and publicly rebuked. She sat with cheek on fire, and a little natural water in her eyes, and looked ten times comelier and more womanly and interesting than she had done all day. The desertion of the best narrator broke up the party, and the unassuming Denys approached the meditative mijauree, and invited her in the most flattering terms to gamble with him. She started from her reverie, looked him down into the earth's centre with chilling dignity, and consented, for she remembered all in a moment what a show of hands gambling admitted.

The soldier and the mijauree rattled the dice. In which sport she was so taken up with her hands, that she forgot to cheat, and Denys won an “ecu au soleil” of her. She fumbled slowly with her purse, partly because her sex do not burn to pay debts of honour, partly to admire the play of her little knuckles peeping between their soft white cushions. Denys proposed a compromise.

“Three silver franks I win of you, fair hostess. Give me now three kisses of this white hand, and we'll e'en cry quits.”

“You are malapert,” said the lady, with a toss of her head; “besides, they are so dirty. See! they are like ink!” and to convince him she put them out to him and turned them up and down. They were no dirtier than cream fresh from the cob and she knew it: she was eternally washing and scenting them.

Denys read the objection like the observant warrior he was, seized them and mumbled them.

Finding him so appreciative of her charm, she said timidly, “Will you do me a kindness, good soldier?”

“A thousand, fair hostess, an you will.”

“Nay, I ask but one. 'Tis to tell thy comrade I was right sorry to lose his most thrilling story, and I hope he will tell me the rest to-morrow morning. Meantime I shall not sleep for thinking on't. Wilt tell him that—to pleasure me?”

“Ay, I'll tell the young savage. But he is not worthy of your condescension, sweet hostess. He would rather be aside a man than a woman any day.”

“So would—ahem. He is right: the young women of the day are not worthy of him, 'un tas des mijaurees' He has a good, honest, and right comely face. Any way, I would not guest of mine should think me unmannerly, not for all the world. Wilt keep faith with me and tell him?”

“On this fair hand I swear it; and thus I seal the pledge.”

“There; no need to melt the wax, though. Now go to bed. And tell him ere you sleep.”

The perverse toad (I thank thee, Manon, for teaching me that word) was inclined to bestow her slight affections upon Gerard. Not that she was inflammable: far less so than many that passed for prudes in the town. But Gerard possessed a triple attraction that has ensnared coquettes in all ages. 1. He was very handsome. 2. He did not admire her the least. 3. He had given her a good slap in the face.

Denys woke Gerard and gave the message. Gerard was not enchanted “Dost wake a tired man to tell him that? Am I to be pestered with 'mijaurees' by night as well as day?”

“But I tell thee, novice, thou hast conquered her: trust to my experience: her voice sank to melodious whispers; and the cunning jade did in a manner bribe me to carry thee her challenge to Love's lists! for so I read her message.”

Denys then, assuming the senior and the man of the world, told Gerard the time was come to show him how a soldier understood friendship and camaraderie. Italy was now out of the question. Fate had provided better; and the blind jade Fortune had smiled on merit for once. “The Head of Gold” had been a prosperous inn, would be again with a man at its head. A good general laid far-sighted plans; but was always ready to abandon them, should some brilliant advantage offer, and to reap the full harvest of the unforeseen: 'twas chiefly by this trait great leaders defeated little ones; for these latter could do nothing not cut and dried beforehand.

“Sorry friendship, that would marry me to a mijauree,” interposed Gerard, yawning.

“Comrade, be reasonable; 'tis not the friskiest sheep that falls down the cliff. All creatures must have their fling soon, or late; and why not a woman? What more frivolous than a kitten? what graver than a cat?”

“Hast a good eye for nature, Denys,” said Gerard, “that I proclaim.

“A better for thine interest, boy. Trust then to me; these little doves