urchman than layman, being convent bred, and in the lesser
orders," said the ready cure. "Therefore, sorcerer, withdraw thy plaint
without more words!"

"That I will not, your reverence," replied Mangis stoutly. "A sorcerer I
am, but a white one, not a black one. I make no pact with Satan, but on
the contrary still battle him with lawful and necessary arts, I ne'er
profane the sacraments, as do the black sorcerers, nor turn myself into
a cat and go sucking infants' blood, nor e'en their breath, nor set dead
men o' fire. I but tell the peasants when their cattle and their hens
are possessed, and at what time of the moon to plant rye, and what days
in each month are lucky for wooing of women and selling of bullocks
and so forth: above all, it is my art and my trade to detect the black
magicians, as I did that whole tribe of them who were burnt at Dol but
last year."

"Ay, Mangis. And what is the upshot of that famous fire thy tongue did
kindle?"

"Why, their ashes were cast to the wind."

"Ay. But the true end of thy comedy is this. The parliament of Dijon
hath since sifted the matter, and found they were no sorcerers, but good
and peaceful citizens; and but last week did order masses to be said for
their souls, and expiatory farces and mysteries to be played for them
in seven towns of Burgundy; all which will not of those cinders make men
and women again. Now 'tis our custom in this land, when we have slain
the innocent by hearkening false knaves like thee, not to blame our
credulous ears, but the false tongue that gulled them. Therefore bethink
thee that, at a word from me to my lord bishop, thou wilt smell burning
pine nearer than e'er knave smelt it and lived, and wilt travel on a
smoky cloud to him whose heart thou bearest (for the word devil in the
Latin it meaneth 'false accuser'), and whose livery thou wearest."

And the cure pointed at Mangis with his staff.

"That is true i'fegs," said the alderman, "for red and black be the foul
fiendys colours."

By this time the white sorcerer's cheek was as colourless as his dress
was fiery. Indeed the contrast amounted to pictorial. He stammered out,
"I respect Holy Church and her will; he shall fire the churchyard, and
all in it, for me: I do withdraw the plaint."

"Then withdraw thyself," said the vice-bailiff.

The moment he was gone the cure took the conversational tone, and told
the alderman courteously that the accused had received the chemical
substance fr