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