t we may meet the
meanest she of all those wise virgins in the next world, and to that
end let us reverence their holy dust in this one. And then there is the
church of the Maccabees, and the cauldron in which they and their
mother Solomona were boiled by a wicked king for refusing to eat swine's
flesh."

"Oh, peremptory king! and pig-headed Maccabees! I had eaten bacon with
my pork liever than change places at the fire with my meat."

"What scurvy words are these? it was their faith."

"Nay, bridle thy choler, and tell me, are there nought but churches
in this thy so vaunted city? for I affect rather Sir Knight than Sir
Priest."

"Ay, marry, there is an university near a hundred years old; and there
is a market-place, no fairer in the world, and at the four sides of
it houses great as palaces; and there is a stupendous senate-house all
covered with images, and at the head of them stands one of stout Herman
Gryn, a soldier like thyself, lad."

"Ay. Tell me of him! what feat of arms earned him his niche?"

"A rare one. He slew a lion in fair combat, with nought but his cloak
and a short sword. He thrust the cloak in the brute's mouth, and cut
his spine in twain, and there is the man's effigy and eke the lion's to
prove it. The like was never done but by three more, I ween; Samson
was one, and Lysimachus of Macedon another, and Benaiah, a captain of
David's host."

"Marry! three tall fellows. I would like well to sup with them all
to-night."

"So would not I," said Gerard drily.

"But tell me," said Denys, with some surprise, "when wast thou in
Cologne?"

"Never but in the spirit. I prattle with the good monks by the way, and
they tell me all the notable things both old and new.

"Ay, ay, have not I seen your nose under their very cowls? But when I
speak of matters that are out of sight, my words they are small, and the
thing it was big; now thy words be as big or bigger than the things; art
a good limner with thy tongue; I have said it; and for a saint, as ready
with hand, or steel, or bolster--as any poor sinner living; and so,
shall I tell thee which of all these things thou hast described draws me
to Cologne?"

"Ay, Denys."

"Thou, and thou only; no dead saint, but my living friend and comrade
true; 'tis thou alone draws Denys of Burgundy to Cologne?"

Gerard hung his head.

At this juncture one of the younger boatmen suddenly inquired what was
amiss with "little turnip-face?"

His young nephew