I know!" answered La Mothe crossly. It vexed him that
Villon should speak at all of Ursula de Vesc, and still more that his
answer was so lame. But recognizing the symptoms out of a wide
experience, Villon only laughed softly at the brusque retort.

"Some peaches hang themselves high," he said, the laugh broadening as
La Mothe's face grew wrathful, "but they are peaches all the same.
Shake the tree, my young friend, shake the tree, and see that you keep
your mouth open when the fruit drops."

"Monsieur Villon, if we are to be friends----"

"So young, so very young," said Villon softly. "Friends? most
certainly. If we are not friends, who should be? Are we not both
jackals hunting in the one pack, and jackal does not bite jackal."
Then his mood changed with a swiftness which La Mothe soon found to be
characteristic, a kindliness cast out the jarring banter from his face,
and his luminous eyes grew wistful. "Friends? It is a good word, the
very best word in the world. Friends are more than family or kinship,
and not many care to call old Francois Villon friend nowadays. There
was a time----" He paused, running his hand down the long trail of his
beard reflectively, a slender-fingered supple hand. La Mothe noted it
was, a hand that had a distinct character of its own, just as the
contradictory face had, though the finger-tips were less sensitive than
in the days when their itching acquisitiveness had brought their owner
to the cold shadows of the gallows. "Aye! there was a time. There
were four of us----"

"The ballad says six," said La Mothe.

"Four, four: a man--yet, more, a woman--may have many lovers but few
friends, many to tuck an arm in his or throw it across his neck when
the pockets are full. But that's not friendship, and I don't call
every man friend who dips his fingers into the same till with me. Yes,
there were four of us, Montigny, Tabary, Cayeux, poor snows of yester
year sucked down by the cold earth. But while the blood was warm in
our veins we four were as one with one purse. When it was full we
laughed and sang and feasted as no king feasts, because no king has
such spice of appetite nor can snap his fingers at the world and care
as we could: when it was empty, and it was mostly empty, we laughed and
sang the louder and shared our crusts or went gaily hungry. Brave lads
every one, and brave days. Aye, aye."

"And where are they now?"

"With the snows of yester year! God know