s face and
by their tickling had deluded his sleeping senses into the agreeable
fancy. He awoke, and hearing a noise of wings beating above his head, he
thought it was a devil, as was very natural for him to opine, seeing how
the evil spirits flock in countless swarms to torment mankind, and above
all at night time. But the moon just then breaking through the clouds,
he recognised Madame Ysabeau and saw she was busy with her beak pushing
into a crack in the wall that served her for storehouse a blue purse
broidered with silver. He let her do as she list; but when she had left
her hoard, he clambered onto a beam, took the purse, opened it, and saw
it contained twelve good gold deniers, which he clapped in his belt,
giving thanks to the incomparable Black Virgin of Le Puy. For he was a
clerk and versed in the Scriptures, and he remembered how the Lord fed
his prophet Elias by a raven; whence he inferred that the Holy Mother
of God had sent by a magpie twelve deniers to her poor penman, Florent
Guillaume.

On the morrow Florent and Marguerite the lace-maker ate a dish of
tripe,--a treat they had craved for many a long year.

So ends the Miracle of the Magpie. May he who tells the tale live, as he
would fain live, in good and gentle peace, and all good hap befall such
folk as shall read the same.

BROTHER JOCONDE

[Illustration: 062]

THE Parisians were far from loving the English and found it hard to put
up with them. When, after the obsequies of the late King Charles VI, the
Duke of Bedford had the sword of the King of France borne before him,
the people murmured. But what cannot be cured must be endured. Besides,
though the capital hated the English, it loved the Burgundians. What
more natural for citizen folk, and especially for money-changers and
traders, than to admire Duke Philip, a prince of seemly presence and the
richest nobleman in Christendom. As for the "little King of Bourges,"
a sorry-looking mortal and very poor, strongly suspected, moreover, of
foul murder at the Bridge of Montereau, what had he about him to please
folk withal? Scorn was the sentiment felt for him, and horror and
loathing for his partisans. For ten years now had these been riding and
raiding around the walls, pillaging and holding to ransom. No doubt the
English and Burgun-dians did much the same; when, in the month of
August, 1423, Duke Philip came to Paris, his men-at-arms had ravaged all
the country about. And they were frien