was as dead as Caesar, poor wench, and as cold as a
church,, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This
is a hard world in winter for wolves and wenches and
poor rogues like me."
306
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
"I," said the old man, "am Enguerrand de la Feuil-
lee, seigneur de Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and
what may you be?"
Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. "I am
called Francis Villon," he said, "a poor Master of Arts
of this university. I know some Latin, and a deal of
vice. I can make chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and
roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a
garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows.
I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am
your lordship's very obsequious servant to command."
"No servant of mine, "said the knight; "my guest for
this evening, and no more."
" A very grateful guest," said Villon politely, and he
drank in dumb show to his entertainer.
"You are shrewd," began the old man, tapping his
forehead, " very shrewd; you have learning; you are a
clerk ; and yet you take a small piece of money off a
dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of theft ? "
"It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my
lord."
" The wars are the field of honour," returned the old
man proudly. "There a man plays his life upon the
cast; he fights in the name of his lord the king, his Lord
God, and all their lordships the holy saints and angels."
' ' Put it, " said Villon, ' ' that I were really a thief, should
I not play my life also, and against heavier odds ?"
" For gain but not for honour."
"Gain?" repeated Villon with a shrug. "Gain !
The poor fellow wants supper, and takes it. So does
the soldier in a campaign. Why, what are all these
requisitions we hear so much about ? If they are not
307
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
gain to those who take them, they are loss enough to
the others. The men-at-arms drink by a good fire,
while the burgher bites his nails to buy them wine and
wood. I have seen a good many ploughmen swinging
on trees about the country ; ay, I have seen thirty on one
elm, and a very poor figure they made; and when I
asked someone how all these came to be hanged, I was
told it was because they could not scrape together
enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms."
" These things are a necessity of war, which the low-
born must endure with constancy. It is true that some
captains drive overhard ; there are spirits in every rank
not easily moved by pity ; and indeed many follow arms
who are no better than brigands. "
"You see," said the poet, "you cannot separate the
soldier from the brigand ; and what is a thief but an iso-
lated brigand with circumspect manners ? I steal a
couple of mutton chops, without so much as disturbing
people's sleep ; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none
the less wholesomely on what remains. You come up
blowing gloriously on a trumpet, take away the whole
sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully into the bargain. I
have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am
a rogue and a dog, and hanging's too good for me
with all my heart ; but just ask the farmer which of us
he prefers, just find out which of us he lies awake to
curse on cold nights."
"Look at us two," said his lordship. " I am old,
strong, and honoured. If I were turned from my house
to-morrow, hundreds would be proud to shelter me.
Poor people would go out and pass the night in the
streets with their children, if I merely hinted that I
308
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
wished to be alone. And I find you up, wandering
homeless, and picking farthings off dead women by the
wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have seen you
tremble and lose countenance at a word. I wait God's
summons contentedly in my own house, or, if it please
the king to call me out again, upon the field of battle.
You look for the gallows ; a rough, swift death, with-
out hope or honour. Is there no difference between
these two ? "
"As far as to the moon," Villon acquiesced. "But
if I had been born lord of Brisetout, and you had been
the poor scholar Francis, would the difference have been
any the less ? Should not I have been warming my
knees at this charcoal pan, and would not you have
been groping for farthings in the snow ? Should not I
have been the soldier, and you the thief?"
' ' A thief ? " cried the old man. "la thief ! If you
understood your words, you would repent them."
Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimi-
table impudence. "If your lordship had done me the
honour to follow my argument! " he said.
"I do you too much honour in submitting to your
piesence," said the knight. " Learn to curb your tongue
when you speak with old and honourable men, or some
one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper fashion."
And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment,
struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surrepti-
tiously refilled his cup, and settled himself more com-
fortably in the chair, crossing his knees and leaning his
head upon one hand and the elbow against the back of
the chair. He was now replete and warm ; and he was
in nowise frightened for his host, having gauged him
309
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
as justly as was possible between two such different
characters. The night was far spent, and in a very
comfortable fashion after all ; and he felt morally certain
of a safe departure on the morrow.
"Tell me one thing," said the old man, pausing in
his walk. "Are you really a thief? "
"I claim the sacred rights of hospitality," returned
the poet. "My lord, I am."
"You are very young," the knight continued.
"1 should never have been so old," replied Villon,
showing his fingers, "if I had not helped myself with
these ten talents. They have been my nursing mothers
and my nursing fathers."
" You may still repent and change."
' ' I repent daily, " said the poet. ' ' There are few peo-
ple more given to repentance than poor Francis. As for
change, let somebody change my circumstances. A
man must continue to eat, if it were only that he may
continue to repent."
"The change must begin in the heart," returned the
old man solemnly.
"My dear lord," answered Villon, "do you really
fancy that I steal for pleasure ? I hate stealing, like any
other piece of work or of danger. My teeth chatter
when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I
must mix in society of some sort. What the devil!
Man is not a solitary animal Cut Deus fceminam tradit.
Make me king's pantler make me abbot of St. Denis;
make me bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be
changed indeed. But as long as you leave me the poor
scholar Francis Villon, without a farthing, why, of
course, I remain the same."
310
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
" The grace of God is all-powerful."
"I should be a heretic to question it," said Francis.
" It has made you lord of Brisetout and bailly of the
Patatrac; it has given me nothing but the quick wits
under my hat and these ten toes upon my hands. May
I help myself to wine ? 1 thank you respectfully. By
God's grace, you have a very superior vintage."
The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands
behind his back. Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in
his mind about the parallel between thieves and soldiers;
perhaps Villon had interested him by some cross-thread
of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled
by so much unfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the
cause, he somehow yearned to convert the young man
to a better way of thinking, and could not make up his
mind to drive him forth again into the street.
"There is something more than I can understand in
this," he said at length. "Your mouth is full of sub-
tleties, and the devil has led you very far astray; but
the devil is only a very weak spirit before God's truth,
and all his subtleties vanish at a word of true honour,
like darkness at morning. Listen to me once more. I
learned long ago that a gentleman should live chival-
rously and lovingly to God, and the king, and his lady;
and though I have seen many strange things done, I have
still striven to command my ways upon that rule. It is
not only written in all noble histories, but in every man's
heart, if he will take care to read. You speak of food
and wine, and I know very well that hunger is a diffi-
cult trial to endure ; but you do not speak of other wants ;
you say nothing of honour, of faith to God and other
men, of courtesy, of love without reproach. It may be
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
that I am not very wise and yet I think I am but
you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made
a great error in life. You are attending to the little
wants, and you have totally forgotten the great and
only real ones, like a man who should be doctoring
toothache on the Judgment Day. For such things as
honour and love and faith are not only nobler than food
and drink, but indeed 1 think we desire them more, and
suffer more sharply for their absence. I speak to you
as I think you will most easily understand me. Are you
not, while careful to fill your belly, disregarding another
appetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure of your
life and keeps you continually wretched ? "
Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermoniz-
ing. " You think I have no sense of honour! " he cried.
"I'm poor enough, God knows! It's hard to see rich
people with their gloves, and you blowing in your
hands. An empty belly is a bitter thing, although you
speak so lightly of it. If you had had as many as I,
perhaps you would change your tune. Any way I'm a
thief make the most of that but I'm not a devil from
hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know
I've an honour of my own, as good as yours, though I
don't prate about it all day long, as if it was a God's
miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I
keep it in its box till it's wanted. Why now, look you
here, how long have I been in this room with you ?
Did you not tell me you were alone in the house ? Look
at your gold plate ! You're strong, if you like, but you're
old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I
want but a jerk of the elbow and here would have been
you with the cold steel in your bowels, and there would
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A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
have been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of
golden cups! Did you suppose I hadn't wit enough to
see that ? And I scorned the action. There are your
damned goblets, as safe as in a church; there are you,
with your heart ticking as good as new ; and here am
I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my
one white that you threw in my teeth! And you think
I have no sense of honour God strike me dead!"
The old man stretched out his right arm. "I will tell
you what you are," he said. "You are a rogue, my
man, an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vaga-
bond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh ! believe
me, I feel myself disgraced ! And you have eaten and
drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence ;
the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to
his roost. Will you go before, or after?"
"Which you please," returned the poet, rising. "I
believe you to be strictly honourable." He thoughtfully
emptied his cup. "I wish I could add you were intelli-
gent," he went on, knocking on his head with his knuck-
les. "Age! age! the brains stiff and rheumatic."
The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect.
Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.
"God pity you," said the lord of Brisetout at the door.
"Good-bye, papa," returned Villon with a yawn.
" Many thanks for the cold mutton."
The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking
over the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning
ushered in the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched
himself in the middle of the road.
"A very dull old gentleman, " he thought. " I wonder
what his goblets may be worth."
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR
DENIS DE BEAUL1EU was not yet two-and-twenty,
but he counted himself a grown man, and a very
accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were early
formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one
has been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed
one's man in an honourable fashion, and knows a thing
or two of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger
in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put
up his horse with due care, and supped with due de-
liberation ; and then, in a very agreeable frame of mind,
went out to pay a visit in the gray of the evening. It
was not a very wise proceeding on the young man's
part. He would have done better to remain beside the
fire or go decently to bed. For the town was full of the
troops of Burgundy and England under a mixed com-
mand; and though Denis was there on safe-conduct, his
safe-conduct was like to serve him little on a chance
encounter.
It was September, 1429; the weather had fallen sharp;
a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about
the township ; and the dead leaves ran riot along
the streets. Here and there a window was already
lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry
317
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
over supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed
up and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly ;
the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top, grew
ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds a black
speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of
the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and began to
hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the
valley below the town.
Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking
at his friend's door; but though he promised himself to
stay only a little while and make an early return, his wel-
come was so pleasant, and he found so much to delay
him, that it was already long past midnight before he
said good-bye upon the threshold. The wind had fallen
again in the meanwhile ; the night was as black as the
grave ; not a star, nor a glimmer of moonshine, slipped
through the canopy of cloud. Denis was ill-acquainted
with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon; even by
daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way ;
and in this absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether.
He was certain of one thing only to keep mounting
the hill ; for his friend's house lay at the lower end, or
tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the
head, under the great church spire. With this clue to go
upon he stumbled and groped forward, now breathing
more freely in open places where there was a good slice
of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in stifling
closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus
submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown
town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The
touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles
the man like the touch of a toad ; the inequalities of the
318
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR
pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of
denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in
the pathway ; and where the air is brighter, the houses
put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to
lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to
regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real
danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he
went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner
paused to make an observation.
He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow
that he could touch a wall with either hand when it be-
gan to open out and go sharply downward. Plainly
this lay no longer in the direction of his inn ; but the
hope of a little more light tempted him forward to rec-
onnoitre. The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan
wall, which gave an outlook between high houses, as
out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and
formless several hundred feet below. Denis looked
down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a
single speck of brightness where the river ran across a
weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky had
lightened, so as to show the outline of the heavier
clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the uncer-
tain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a
place of some pretensions; it was surmounted by several
pinnacles and turret-tops ; the round stern of a chapel,
with a fringe of flying buttresses, projected boldly from
the main block; and the door was sheltered under a
deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two
long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel gleamed
through their intricate tracery with a light as of many
tapers, and threw out the buttresses and the peaked
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
roof in a more intense blackness against the sky. It
was plainly the hotel of some great family of the neigh-
bourhood ; and as it reminded Denis of a town house
of his own at Bourges, he stood for some time gazing
up at it and mentally gauging the skill of the architects
and the consideration of the two families.
There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the
lane by which he had reached it; he could only retrace
his steps, but he had gained some notion of his where-
abouts, and hoped by this means to hit the main thor-
oughfare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckon-
ing without that chapter of accidents which was to
make this night memorable above all others in his career;
for he had not gone back above a hundred yards before
he saw a light coming to meet him, and heard loud
voices speaking together in the echoing narrows of the
lane. It was a party of men-at-arms going the night
round with torches. Denis assured himself that they
had all been making free with the wine-bowl, and were
in no mood to be particular about safe-conducts or the
niceties of chivalrous war. It was as like as not that they
would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell.
The situation was inspiriting but nervous. Their own
torches would conceal him from sight, he reflected ; and
he hoped that they would drown the noise of his foot-
steps with their own empty voices. If he were but
fleet and silent, he might evade their notice altogether.
Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot
rolled upon a pebble; he fell against the wall with an
ejaculation, and his sword rang loudly on the stones.
Two or three voices demanded who went there some
in French, some in English ; but Denis made no reply,
320
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR
and ran the faster down the lane. Once upon the ter-
race, he paused to look back. They still kept calling
after him, and just then began to double the pace in
pursuit, with a considerable clank of armour, and great
tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws
of the passage.
Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch.
There he might escape observation, or if that were
too much to expect was in a capital posture whether
for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew his sword
and tried to set his back against the door. To his sur-
prise, it yielded behind his weight ; and though he turned
in a moment, continued to swing back on oiled and
noiseless hinges, until it stood wide open on a black in-
terior. When things fall out opportunely for the person
concerned, he is not apt to be critical about the how or
why, his own immediate personal convenience seeming
a sufficient reason for the strangest oddities and revolu-
tions in our sublunary things; and so Denis, without a
moment's hesitation, stepped within and partly closed
the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge. No-
thing was further from his thoughts than to close it al-
together; but for some inexplicable reason perhaps
by a spring or a weight the ponderous mass of oak
whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a
formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an au-
tomatic bar.
The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the
terrace and proceeded to summon him with shouts and
curses. He heard them ferreting in the dark corners;
the stock of a lance even rattled along the outer surface
of the door behind which he stood ; but these gentlemen
321
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
were in too high a humour to be long delayed, and soon
made off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped
Denis's observation, and passed out of sight and hearing
along the battlements of the town.
Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes'
grace for fear of accidents, and then groped about for
some means of opening the door and slipping forth
again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a
handle, not a moulding, not a projection of any sort.
He got his finger-nails round the edges and pulled, but
the mass was immovable. He shook it, it was as firm
as a rock. Denis de Beaulieu frowned and gave vent to
a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door ? he won-
dered. Why was it open ? How came it to shut so
easily and so effectually after him ? There was some-
thing obscure and underhand about all this, that was
little to the young man's fancy. It looked like a snare ;
and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-
street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble
an exterior ? And yet snare or no snare, intentionally
or unintentionally here he was, prettily trapped ; and
for the life of him he could see no way out of it again.
The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear;
all was silence without, but within and close by he
seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a
little stealthy creak as though many persons were at
his side, holding themselves quite still, and governing
even their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The
idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about
suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the first time,
he became aware of a light about the level of his eyes
and at some distance in the interior of the house a
322
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR
vertical thread of light, widening towards the bottom,
such as might escape between two wings of arras over
a doorway. To see anything was a relief to Denis; it
was like a piece of solid ground to a man labouring in a
morass; his mind seized upon it with avidity; and he
stood staring at it and trying to piece together some
logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there
was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to
that of this illuminated doorway ; and indeed he thought
he could make out another thread of light, as fine as a
needle, and as faint as phosphorescence, which might
very well be reflected along the polished wood of a
handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was
not alone, his heart had continued to beat with smother-
ing violence, and an intolerable desire for action of any
sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in deadly
peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to
mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his dif-
ficulty at once ? At least he would be dealing with some-
thing tangible ; at least he would be no longer in the
dark. He stepped slowly forward with outstretched
hands, until his foot struck the bottom step; then he
rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to compose
his expression, lifted the arras and went in.
He found himself in a large apartment of polished
stone. There were three doors ; one on each of three
sides; all similarly curtained with tapestry. The fourth
side was occupied by two large windows and a great
stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Male-
troits. Denis recognised the bearings, and was gratified
to find himself in such good hands. The room was
strongly illuminated ; but it contained little furniture ex-
3*3
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
cept a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth was
innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely
strewn with rushes clearly many days old.
On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly fac-
ing Denis as he entered, sat a little old gentleman in a
fur tippet. He sat with his legs crossed and his hands
folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by his elbow on
a bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strongly
masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see
in the bull, the goat, or the domestic boar; something
equivocal and wheedling, something greedy, brutal, and
dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately full, as
though swollen by a blow or a toothache; and the smile,
the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were
quaintly and almost comically evil in expression. Beau-
tiful white hair hung straight all round his head, like a
saint's, and fell in a single curl upon the tippet. His
beard and moustache were the pink of venerable sweet-