our
rebellious gates!"

"Not so!" cried the Reeve, "in the name of Justice and Mercy ne'er will
we yield this our city until in Belsaye no man is left to strike for
maid and wife and child!"

At the which bold words some few men shouted in acclaim, but for the
most part the citizens were mumchance, their hearts cold within them,
while all eyes stared fearfully upon the Prior, who, lifting white
hand again, rose up from cushioned chair and spake him loud and clear:

"Then, upon this rebellious city and all that therein is, on babe, on
child, on youth, on maid, on man, on wife, on the hale, the sick, the
stricken in years, on beast, on bird, and on all that hath life and
being I do pronounce the church's dread curse and awful ban:--ex--"

The Prior's mellifluous voice was of a sudden lost and drowned in
another, a rich voice, strong and full and merry:

"Quit--quit thy foolish babblement, thou fat and naughty friar; too
plump art thou, too round and buxom to curse a curse as curses should
be cursed, so shall thy curses avail nothing, for who doth heed the
fatuous fulminations of a fat man? But as to me, I could have out-cursed
thee in my cradle, thou big-bellied thing of emptiness--go to for a
sounding brass and tinkling cymbal!"

Thus, from his "mockery" perched high above the battlement, spake
Giles, with many and divers knowing gestures of arm, waggings of the
head, rollings of the eyes and the like, what time Roger and Walkyn and
Ulf, their heads bent close together, busied themselves above a great
and bulging wine-skin.

And now on wall and tower and market-square a great silence had fallen,
yet a silence broken now and then by sound of stifled laughter, while
the Prior, staring in wonder and amaze, suddenly clenched white fist,
and, albeit very red and fiery of visage, strove whole-heartedly to
curse on:

"Ha--now upon the lewd populace of this most accursed and rebellious
city do I call down the--"

"Upon thy round and barrel-like paunch," cried Giles, "do I pronounce
this dire and dreadful ban, _videlicet_, Sir Fatness, _nota bene_ and
to wit: may the fiend rend it with gruesome gripings--aye, rend it with
claws and beak, _unguibus et rostro_, most mountainous monk!"

Here, once again came sounds of stifled merriment, what time the Prior,
puffing out his fat cheeks, fell to his curses full-tongued:

"Upon this evil city be the malison of Holy Church, her maledictions
bitter, her imprecation and anath