"Is it likely? Denys, I shall soon have done: do not go to sleep, I want
to talk.

"Despatch then! for I feel--augh like floating-in the sky on a warm
cloud."

"Denys!"

"Augh! eh! hallo! is it time to get up?"

"Alack, no. There, I hurried my orisons to talk; and look at you, going
to sleep! We shall be starved before morning, having no coverlets."

"Well, you know what to do."

"Not I, in sooth."

"Cuddle the cow."

"Thank you."

"Burrow in the straw, then. You must be very new to the world, to
grumble at this. How would you bear to lie on the field of battle on a
frosty night, as I did t'other day, stark naked, with nothing to keep me
warm but the carcass of a fellow I had been and helped kill?"

"Horrible! horrible! Tell me all about it! Oh, but this is sweet."

"Well, we had a little battle in Brabant, and won a little victory, but
it cost us dear; several arbalestriers turned their toes up, and I among
them."

"Killed, Denys? come now!"

"Dead as mutton. Stuck full of pike-holes till the blood ran out of
me, like the good wine of Macon from the trodden grapes. It is right
bounteous in me to pour the tale in minstrel phrase, for--augh--I am
sleepy. Augh--now where was I?"

"Left dead on the field of battle, bleeding like a pig; that is to say,
like grapes, or something; go on, prithee go on, 'tis a sin to sleep in
the midst of a good story."

"Granted. Well, some of those vagabonds, that strip the dead soldier on
the field of glory, came and took every rag off me; they wrought me no
further ill, because there was no need."

"No; you were dead."

"C'est convenu. This must have been at sundown; and with the night came
a shrewd frost that barkened the blood on my wounds, and stopped all the
rivulets that were running from my heart, and about midnight I awoke as
from a trance.'

"And thought you were in heaven?" asked Gerard eagerly, being a youth
inoculated with monkish tales.

"Too frost-bitten for that, mon gars; besides, I heard the wounded
groaning on all sides, so I knew I was in the old place. I saw I could
not live the night through without cover. I groped about shivering and
shivering; at last one did suddenly leave groaning. 'You are sped,' said
I, so made up to him, and true enough he was dead, but warm, you know.
I took my lord in my arms, but was too weak to carry him, so rolled with
him into a ditch hard by; and there my comrades found me in the morning
properly stung with ne