oly sepulchre; and
you wheeled us both from Jerusalem.' Said I, 'Wheeling a pair o' lies,
one stony, one fleshy, may be work, and hard work, but honest work 'tis
not. 'Tis fumbling with his tail you wot of. And,' said I, 'master, next
time you go to tempt me to knavery, speak not to me of my poor old dad.'
Said I, 'You have minded me of my real father's face, the truest man in
Holland. He and I are ill friends now, worse luck. But though I offend
him shame him I never will.' Dear Margaret, with this knave' saying,
'your poor old dad,' it had gone to my heart like a knife. ''Tis well,'
said my master gloomily; 'I have made a bad bargain.' Presently he
halts, and eyes a tree by the wayside. 'Go spell me what is writ on
yon tree.' So I went, and there was nought but a long square drawn in
outline. I told him so. 'So much for thy monkish lore,' quoth he. A
little farther, and he sent me to read a wall. There was nought but a
circle scratched on the stone with a point of nail or knife, and in the
circle two dots. I said so Then said he, 'Bon Bec, that square was a
warning. Some good Truand left it, that came through this village faring
west; that means "dangerous." The circle with the two dots was writ by
another of our brotherhood; and it signifies as how the writer, soit
Rollin Trapu, soit Triboulet, soit Catin Cul de Bois, or what not, was
becked for asking here, and lay two months in Starabin.' Then he broke
forth. 'Talk: of your little snivelling books that go in pouch. Three
books have I, France, England, and Germany; and they are writ all over
in one tongue, that my brethren of all countries understand; and that
is what I call learning. So sith here they whip sores, and imprison
infirmities, I to my tiring room.' And he popped behind the hedge, and
came back worshipful. We passed through the village, and I sat me down
on the stocks, and even the barber's apprentice whets his razor on a
block, so did I flesh my psaltery on this village, fearing great cities.
I tuned it, and coursed up and down the wires nimbly with my two wooden
strikers; and then chanted loud and clear, as I had heard the minstrels
of the country,

'Qui veut ouir qui veut Savoir,'

some trash, I mind not what. And soon the villagers, male and female,
thronged about me; thereat I left singing, and recited them to the
psaltery a short but right merry tale out of 'the lives of the saints,'
which it is my handbook of pleasant figments and this ended, ins