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laughter, which he drowned with a great draught of wine. "I'm a

little put out when I think of it," he went on. "I knew him - damn
him! And then the cold gives a man fancies - or the fancies give a

man cold, I don't know which."
"Have you any money?" asked the old man.

"I have one white," returned the poet, laughing. "I got it out of
a dead jade's stocking in a porch. She 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."
"I," said the old man, "am Enguerrand de la Feuillee, seigneur de

Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?"
Villon rose and made a suitablereverence. "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 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 some one 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 over
hard; 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 isolated 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 you 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

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, without 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. "I a thief! If you understood your

words, you would repent them."
Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable 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 presence," 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
surreptitiously refilled his cup, and settled himself more

comfortably 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 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.

"I 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 people 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 - CUI DEUS FAEMINAM 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."
"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? I 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 unfamiliarreasoning; 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 subtleties, 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 chivalrously 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 difficult

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 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 a toothache on the Judgment Day. For
such things as honour and love and faith are not only nobler than

food and drink, but indeed I think that 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 sermonising. "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 have been me, linking in the streets,

with an armful of gold 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 a black-

hearted rogue and vagabond. 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 intelligent," he went on, knocking on his head

with his knuckles. "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



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