his own peculiar way.

III
HORRIBLE CHASTISEMENT OF BERTHA AND EXPIATION OF THE SAME,
WHO DIED PARDONED

The servant of the lady of Bastarnay, who was then about
five-and-thirty years old, fell in love with one of the master's
men-at-arms, and was silly enough to let him take loaves out of the
oven, until there resulted therefrom a natural swelling, which certain
wags in these parts call a nine months' dropsy. The poor woman begged
her mistress to intercede for her with the master, so that he might
compel this wicked man to finish at the altar that which he had
commenced elsewhere. Madame de Bastarnay had no difficulty in obtaining
this favour from him, and the servant was quite satisfied. But the old
warrior, who was always extremely rough, hastened into his pretorium,
and blew him up sky-high, ordering him, under the pain of the gallows,
to marry the girl; which the soldier preferred to do, thinking more of
his neck than of his peace of mind.

Bastarnay sent also for the female, to whom he imagined, for the
honour of his house, he ought to sing a litany, mixed with epithets
and ornamented with extremely strong expressions, and made her think,
by way of punishment, that she was not going to be married, but flung
into one of the cells in the jail. The girl fancied that Madame wanted
to get rid of her, in order to inter the secret of the birth of her
beloved son. With this impression, when the old ape said such
outrageous things to her--namely, that he must have been a fool to
keep a harlot in his house--she replied that he certainly was a very
big fool, seeing that for a long time past his wife had been played
the harlot, and with a monk too, which was the worst thing that could
happen to a warrior.

Think of the greatest storm you ever saw it in your life, and you will
have a weak sketch of the furious rage into which the old man fell,
when thus assailed in a portion of his heart which was a triple life.
He seized the girl by the throat, and would have killed her there and
then, but she, to prove her story, detailed the how, the why, and the
when, and said that if he had no faith in her, he could have the
evidence of his own ears by hiding himself the day that Father Jehan
de Sacchez, the prior of Marmoustier, came. He would then hear the
words of the father, who solaced herself for his year's fast, and in
one day kissed his son for the rest of the year.

Imbert ordered this woman instantly to leave the castl