reply, "he is a rank heretic
and necromancer--a whole college of priests could not absolve him from
the doom he has deserved. Besides, if he hath a fancy that way, thou
hast a gift, Trois Eschelles, to serve him for ghostly father thyself.
But, what is more material, I fear you most use your poniards, my mates;
for you have not here the fitting conveniences for the exercise of your
profession."

"Now our Lady of the Isle of Paris forbid," said Trois Eschelles, "that
the King's command should find me destitute of my tools! I always wear
around my body Saint Francis's cord, doubled four times, with a handsome
loop at the farther end of it; for I am of the company of Saint Francis,
and may wear his cowl when I am in extremis [at the point of death]--I
thank God and the good fathers of Saumur."

"And for me," said Petit Andre, "I have always in my budget a handy
block and sheaf, or a pulley as they call it, with a strong screw for
securing it where I list, in case we should travel where trees are
scarce, or high branched from the ground. I have found it a great
convenience."

"That will suit us well," said the Provost Marshal. "You have but to
screw your pulley into yonder beam above the door, and pass the rope
over it. I will keep the fellow in some conversation near the spot until
you adjust the noose under his chin, and then--"

"And then we run up the rope," said Petit Andre, "and, tchick, our
Astrologer is so far in Heaven that he hath not a foot on earth."

"But these gentlemen," said Trois Eschelles, looking towards the
chimney, "do not these help, and so take a handsel of our vocation?"

"Hem! no," answered the Provost, "the barber only contrives mischief,
which he leaves other men to execute; and for the Scot, he keeps the
door when the deed is a-doing, which he hath not spirit or quickness
sufficient to partake in more actively--every one to his trade."

[The author has endeavoured to give to the odious Tristan l'Hermite
a species of dogged and brutal fidelity to Louis, similar to the
attachment of a bulldog to his master. With all the atrocity of his
execrable character, he was certainly a man of courage, and was in his
youth made knight in the breach of Fronsac, with a great number of
other young nobles, by the honour giving hand of the elder Dunois, the
celebrated hero of Charles the Fifth's reign. S.]

With infinite dexterity, and even a sort of professional delight which
sweetened the sense of their