ory in concise words was not easy. He knew his own
meaning clearly enough, but how was he to make it equally clear to
Commines, who was plainly unsympathetic? When at last he spoke it was
with a hesitation which was almost an apology.

"As I passed through Thouars on my way from Poitou--you know Thouars,
Uncle?"

"Yes; go on."

"Then you know its market-place with the little shops all round and the
church of St. Laon to the side: a cobble-paved space where the children
play? At the one end there was a ring of black and white ashes with
the heat still in them, and in the middle a Thing which hung by chains
from an iron stake. It had been a man that morning, but there it hung
by the spine with the chains through its ribs; a man no more, only
blackened bones and little crisped horrors here or there. Round it two
or three score, white-faced women and children mostly, stood and gaped,
or talked in whispers, pointing. Presently the little children will
play there, and shout and sing and laugh, and the women gossip or buy
and sell."

"A coiner," said Commines. "The King must see that the silver is full
weight."

"Yes, Uncle: but I have heard that sometimes the King himself has
coined----"

"Hush, boy: the King is King."

"Then at Tours, as I rode through the Rue des Trois Pucelles, there was
a house with a fine bold front. One would say that a man with the soul
of an artist lived in it. There were brave carvings on the stout oak
door, carvings on the stone divisions of its five windows, strong iron
bars of very choice smith-work, twisted and hammered, to keep the
common folk from tumbling into the cellars, and in the peaked roof of
fair white plaster were driven great nails from which hung fags of
rope, and from one something which was no rope, but a poor wisp of
humanity staring horribly aslant above a broken neck."

"Yes," said Commines, "Tristan's house. He is the King's
Provost-Marshal and--and----"

"Yes, I know, Uncle. He carries out the justice of the King. But to
hang a fellow-Christian over one's own hall-door is a strange taste."

"Stephen, take my advice and have naught to do with Tristan by word or
deed. And no doubt the fellow deserved his hanging."

"That he may have naught to do with me is my hope," answered La Mothe,
with a little laugh which had no humour in it. "And as to deserts, he
drank overmuch and beat the watch. Truly a vicious rascal! God send
us all sober to bed, Uncle,