after. This sleep saved his life. And Clement, after teaching the
tune to another, in case it should be wanted again, went forward with
his heart a little warmer. On another occasion he found a mob haling
a decently dressed man along, who struggled and vociferated, but in
a strange language. This person had walked into their town erect and
sprightly, waving a mulberry branch over his head. Thereupon the natives
first gazed stupidly, not believing their eyes, then pounced on him and
dragged him before the podesta, Clement went with them; but on the way
drew quietly near the prisoner and spoke to him in Italian; no answer.
In French' German; Dutch; no assets. Then the man tried Clement
in tolerable Latin, but with a sharpish accent. He said he was an
Englishman, and oppressed with the heat of Italy, had taken a bough off
the nearest tree, to save his head. "In my country anybody is welcome to
what grows on the highway. Confound the fools; I am ready to pay for it.
But here is all Italy up in arms about a twig and a handful of leaves."

The pig-headed podesta would have sent the dogged islander to prison;
but Clement mediated, and with some difficulty made the prisoner
comprehend that silkworms, and by consequence mulberry leaves, were
sacred, being under the wing of the Sovereign, and his source of income;
and urged on the podesta that ignorance of his mulberry laws was natural
in a distant country, where the very tree perhaps was unknown, The
opinionative islander turned the still vibrating scale by pulling' out
a long purse and repeating his original theory, that the whole question
was mercantile. "Quid damni?" said he, "Dic; et cito solvam." The
podesta snuffed the gold: fined him a ducat for the duke; about the
value of the whole tree; and pouched the coin.

The Englishman shook off his ire the moment he was liberated, and
laughed heartily at the whole thing; but was very grateful to Clement.

"You are too good for this hole of a country, father," said he, "Come
to England! That is the only place in the world, I was an uneasy fool to
leave it, and wander among mulberries and their idiots. I am a Kentish
squire, and educated at Cambridge University. My name it is Rolfe, my
place Betshanger, The man and the house are both at your service. Come
over and stay till domesday. We sit down forty to dinner every day at
Betshanger. One more or one less at the board will not be seen. You
shall end your days with me and my heirs