Chapter 3. The Wife of Flanders

The Path of the King

by John Buchan

From the bed set high on a dais came eerie spasms of laughter, a
harsh cackle like fowls at feeding time.

"Is that the last of them, Anton?" said a voice.

A little serving-man with an apple-hued face bowed in reply. He
bowed with difficulty, for in his arms he held a huge grey cat, which
still mewed with the excitement of the chase. Rats had been turned
loose on the floor, and it had accounted for them to the
accompaniment of a shrill urging from the bed. Now the sport was
over, and the domestics who had crowded round the door to see it had
slipped away, leaving only Anton and the cat.

"Give Tib a full meal of offal," came the order, "and away with
yourself. Your rats are a weak breed. Get me the stout grey monsters
like Tuesday se'ennight."

The room was empty now save for two figures both wearing the
habit of the religious. Near the bed sat a man in the full black robe
and hood of the monks of Cluny. He warmed plump hands at the brazier
and seemed at ease and at home. By the door stood a different figure
in the shabby clothes of a parish priest, a curate from the kirk of
St. Martin's who had been a scandalised spectator of the rat hunt. He
shuffled his feet as if uncertain of his next step--a thin, pale man
with a pinched mouth and timid earnest eyes.

The glance from the bed fell on him "What will the fellow be
at?" said the voice testily. "He stands there like a sow about to
litter, and stares and grunts. Good e'en to you, friend. When you are
wanted you will be sent for Jesu's name, what have I done to have
that howlet glowering at me?"

The priest at the words crossed himself and turned to go, with a
tinge of red in his sallow cheeks. He was faithful to his duties and
had come to console a death bed, though he was well aware that his
consolations would be spurned.

As he left there came again the eerie laughter from the bed.
"Ugh, I am weary of that incomparable holiness. He hovers about to
give me the St. John's Cup, and would fain speed my passing. But I do
not die yet, good father. There's life still in the old wolf."

The monk in a bland voice spoke some Latin to the effect that
mortal times and seasons were ordained of God. The other stretched
out a skinny hand from the fur coverings and rang a silver bell. When
Anton appeared she gave the order "Bring supper for the reverend
father," at which the Cluniac's face mellowed into complacence.

It was a Friday evening in a hard February. Out-of-doors the
snow lay deep in the streets of Bruges, and every canal was frozen
solid so that carts rumbled along them as on a street. A wind had
risen which drifted the powdery snow and blew icy draughts through
every chink. The small-paned windows of the great upper-room were
filled with oiled vellum, but they did not keep out the weather, and
currents of cold air passed through them to the doorway, making the
smoke of the four charcoal braziers eddy and swirl. The place was
warm, yet shot with bitter gusts, and the smell of burning herbs gave
it the heaviness of a chapel at high mass. Hanging silver lamps,
which blazed blue and smoky, lit it in patches, sufficient to show
the cleanness of the rush-strewn floor, the glory of the hangings of
cloth-of-gold and damask, and the burnished sheen of the metal-work.
There was no costlier chamber in that rich city.

It was a strange staging for death, for the woman on the high
bed was dying. Slowly, fighting every inch of the way with a grim
tenacity, but indubitably dying. Her vital ardour had sunk below the
mark from which it could rise again, and was now ebbing as water runs
from a little crack in a pitcher. The best leeches in all Flanders
and Artois had come to doctor her. They had prescribed the horrid
potions of the age: tinctures of earth-worms; confections of spiders
and wood-lice and viper's flesh; broth of human skulls, oil, wine,
ants' eggs, and crabs' claws; the bufo preparatus, which was a live
toad roasted in a pot and ground to a powder; and innumerable
plaisters and electuaries. She had begun by submitting meekly, for
she longed to live, and had ended, for she was a shrewd woman, by
throwing the stuff at the apothecaries' heads. Now she ordained her
own diet, which was of lamb's flesh lightly boiled, and woman's milk,
got from a wench in the purlieus of St. Sauveur. The one medicine
which she retained was powdered elk's horn, which had been taken from
the beast between two festivals of the Virgin. This she had from the
foresters in the Houthulst woods, and swallowed it in white wine an
hour after every dawn.

The bed was a noble thing of ebony, brought by the Rhine road
from Venice, and carved with fantastic hunting scenes by Hainault
craftsmen. Its hangings were stiff brocaded silver, and above the
pillows a great unicorn's horn, to protect against poisoning, stood
out like the beak of a ship. The horn cast an odd shadow athwart the
bed, so that a big claw seemed to lie on the coverlet curving towards
the throat of her who lay there. The parish priest had noticed this
at his first coming that evening, and had muttered fearful
prayers.

The face on the pillows was hard to discern in the gloom, but
when Anton laid the table for the Cluniac's meal and set a lamp on
it, he lit up the cavernous interior of the bed, so that it became
the main thing in the chamber. It was the face of a woman who still
retained the lines and the colouring of youth. The voice had
harshened with age, and the hair was white as wool, but the cheeks
were still rosy and the grey eyes still had fire. Notable beauty had
once been there. The finely arched brows, the oval of the face which
the years had scarcely sharpened, the proud, delicate nose, all spoke
of it. It was as if their possessor recognised those things and would
not part with them, for her attire had none of the dishevelment of a
sickroom. Her coif of fine silk was neatly adjusted, and the great
robe of marten's fur which cloaked her shoulders was fastened with a
jewel of rubies which glowed in the lamplight like a star.

Something chattered beside her. It was a little brown monkey
which had made a nest in the warm bedclothes.

She watched with sharp eyes the setting of the table. It was a
Friday's meal and the guest was a monk, so it followed a fashion, but
in that house of wealth, which had links with the ends of the earth,
the monotony was cunningly varied. There were oysters from the
Boulogne coast, and lampreys from the Loire, and pickled salmon from
England. There was a dish of liver dressed with rice and herbs in the
manner of the Turk, for liver, though contained in flesh, was not
reckoned as flesh by liberal churchmen. There was a roast goose from
the shore marshes, that barnacle bird which pious epicures classed as
shell-fish and thought fit for fast days. A silver basket held a
store of thin toasted rye-cakes, and by the monk's hand stood a
flagon of that drink most dear to holy palates, the rich syrupy
hippocras.

The woman looked on the table with approval, for her house had
always prided itself upon its good fare. The Cluniac's urbane
composure was stirred to enthusiasm. He said a Confiteor tibi Domine,
rolling the words on his tongue as if in anticipation of the solider
mouthfuls awaiting him. The keen weather had whetted his appetite and
he thanked God that his northern peregrinations had brought him to a
house where the Church was thus honoured. He had liked the cavalier
treatment of the lean parish priest, a sour dog who brought his
calling into disfavour with the rich and godly. He tucked back his
sleeves, adjusted the linen napkin comfortably about his neck, and
fell to with a will. He raised his first glass of hippocras and gave
thanks to his hostess. A true mother in Israel!

She was looking at him with favour. He was the breed of monk
that she liked, suave, well-mannered, observant of men and cities.
Already he had told her entertaining matter about the French King's
court, and the new Burgrave of Ghent, and the escapades of Count
Baldwin. He had lived much among gentlefolk and kept his ears
open.... She felt stronger and cheerfuller than she had been for
days. That rat-hunt had warmed her blood. She was a long way from
death in spite of the cackle of idiot chirurgeons, and there was much
savour still in the world. There was her son, too, the young
Philip.... Her eye saw clearer, and she noted the sombre magnificence
of the great room, the glory of the brocade, the gleam of silver. Was
she not the richest woman in all Bruges, aye, and in all Hainault and
Guelderland? And the credit was her own. After the fashion of age in
such moods her mind flew backward, and she saw very plain a narrow
street in a wind-swept town looking out on a bleak sea. She had been
cold, then, and hungry, and deathly poor. Well, she had travelled
some way from that hovel. She watched the thick carved stems of the
candlesticks and felt a spacious ease and power.

The Cluniac was speaking. He had supped so well that he was in
love with the world.

"Your house and board, my lady, are queen-like. I have seen
worse in palaces."

Her laugh was only half pleased. "Too fine, you would add, for a
burgher wife. Maybe, but rank is but as man makes it. The Kings of
England are sprung of a tanner. Hark you, father! I made a vow to God
when I was a maid, and I have fulfilled my side of the bargain. I am
come of a nobler race than any Markgrave, aye, than the Emperor
himself, and I swore to set the seed of my body, which the Lord might
grant me, again among the great ones. Have I not done it? Is not
Philip, my son, affianced to that pale girl of Avesnes, and with more
acres of pleasant land to his name than any knightlet in Artois?"

The Cluniac bowed a courtly head. "It is a great alliance--but
not above the dignity of your house."

"House you call it, and I have had the making of it. What was
Willebald but a plain merchant-man, one of many scores at the Friday
Market? Willebald was clay that I moulded and gilded till God put him
to bed under a noble lid in the New Kirk. A worthy man, but loutish
and slow like one of his own hookers. Yet when I saw him on the
plainstones by the English harbour I knew that he was a weapon made
for my hand."

Her voice had become even and gentle as of one who remembers
far-away things. The Cluniac, having dipped his hands in a silver
basin, was drying them in the brazier's heat. Presently he set to
picking his teeth daintily with a quill, and fell into the listener's
pose. From long experience he knew the atmosphere which heralds
confidences, and was willing to humour the provider of such royal
fare.

"You have never journeyed to King's Lynn?" said the voice from
the bed. "There is little to see there but mudbars and fens and a
noisy sea. There I dwelt when I was fifteen years of age, a maid
hungry in soul and body. I knew I was of the seed of Forester John
and through him the child of a motley of ancient kings, but war and
famine had stripped our house to the bone. And now I, the last of the
stock, dwelt with a miserly mother's uncle who did shipwright's work
for the foreign captains. The mirror told me that I was fair to look
on, though ill-nourished, and my soul assured me that I had no fear.
Therefore I had hope, but I ate my heart out waiting on fortune."

She was looking at the monk with unseeing eyes, her head half
turned towards him.

"Then came Willebald one March morning. I saw him walk up the
jetty in a new red cloak, a personable man with a broad beard and a
jolly laugh. I knew him by repute as the luckiest of the Flemish
venturers. In him I saw my fortune. That night he supped at my
uncle's house and a week later he sought me in marriage. My uncle
would have bargained, but I had become a grown woman and silenced
him. With Willebald I did not chaffer, for I read his heart and knew
that in a little he would be wax to me. So we were wed, and I took to
him no dowry but a ring which came to me from my forebears, and a
brain that gold does not buy."

The monkey by her side broke into a chattering.

"Peace, Peterkin," she said. "You mind me of the babbling of the
merchant-folk, when I spurred Willebald into new roads. He had done
as his father before him, and bought wool and salted fish from the
English, paying with the stuffs of our Flemish looms. A good trade of
small and sure profits, but I sought bigger quarries. For, mark you,
there was much in England that had a value in this country of ours
which no Englishman guessed."

"Of what nature?" the monk asked with curiosity in his voice.

"Roman things. Once in that land of bogs and forests there were
bustling Roman towns and rich Roman houses, which disappeared as
every tide brought in new robbers from the sea. Yes, but not all.
Much of the preciousness was hidden and the place of its hiding
forgotten. Bit by bit the churls found the treasure-trove, but they
did not tell their lords. They melted down jewels and sold them
piecemeal to Jews for Jews' prices, and what they did not recognise
as precious they wantonly destroyed. I have seen the marble heads of
heathen gods broken with the hammer to make mortar of, and great cups
of onyx and alabaster used as water troughs for a thrall's mongrels.
. . . Knowing the land, I sent pedlars north and west to collect such
stuff, and what I bought for pence I sold for much gold in the
Germanies and throughout the French cities. Thus Willebald amassed
wealth, till it was no longer worth his while to travel the seas. We
lived snug in Flanders, and our servants throughout the broad earth
were busy getting us gear."

The Cluniac was all interest. The making of money lay very near
the heart of his Order. "I have heard wondrous tales of your
enterprise," he told her. "I would fain know the truth."

"Packman's tricks," she laughed. "Nevertheless it is a good
story. For I turned my eyes to the East, whence come those things
that make the pride of life. The merchants of Venice were princes,
and it was in my head to make those of Bruges no worse. What did it
profit that the wind turned daily the sails of our three hundred
mills if we limited ourselves to common burgher wares and the narrow
northern markets? We sent emissaries up the Rhine and beyond the Alps
to the Venice princes, and brought hither the spices and confections
of Egypt and the fruits and wines of Greece, and the woven stuffs of
Asia till the marts of Flanders had the savour of Araby. Presently in
our booths could be seen silks of Italy, and choice metals from
Innsbruck, and furs from Muscovy, and strange birds and beasts from
Prester John's country, and at our fairs such a concourse of
outlandish traders as put Venice to shame. 'Twas a long fight and a
bitter for Willebald and me, since, mark you, we had to make a new
road over icy mountains, with a horde of freebooters hanging on the
skirts of our merchant trains and every little burg on the way
jealous to hamper us. Yet if the heart be resolute, barriers will
fall. Many times we were on the edge of beggary, and grievous were
our losses, but in the end we triumphed. There came a day when we had
so many bands of the Free Companions in our pay that the progress of
our merchandise was like that of a great army, and from rivals we
made the roadside burgs our allies, sharing modestly in our ventures.
Also there were other ways. A pilgrim travels unsuspect, for who dare
rob a holy man? and he is free from burgal dues; but if the goods be
small and very precious, pilgrims may carry them."

The monk, as in duty bound, shook a disapproving head.

"Sin, doubtless," said the woman, "but I have made ample
atonement. Did I not buy with a bushel of gold a leg of the blessed
St. George for the New Kirk, and give to St. Martin's a diamond as
big as a thumb nail and so bright that on a dark day it is a candle
to the shrine? Did not I give to our Lady at Aix a crown of ostrich
feathers the marrow of which is not in Christendom?"

"A mother in Israel, in truth," murmured the cleric.

"Yea, in Israel," said the old wife with a chuckle. "Israel was
the kernel of our perplexities. The good Flemings saw no farther than
their noses, and laughed at Willebald when he began his ventures.
When success came, it was easy to win them over, and by admitting
them to a share in our profits get them to fling their caps in the
air and huzza for their benefactors. But the Jews were a tougher
stock. Mark you, father, when God blinded their eyes to the coming of
the Lord Christ, He opened them very wide to all lower matters. Their
imagination is quick to kindle, and they are as bold in merchantcraft
as Charlemagne in war. They saw what I was after before I had been a
month at it, and were quick to profit by my foresight. There are but
two ways to deal with Israelites--root them from the face of the
earth or make them partners with you. Willebald would have fought
them; I, more wise, bought them at a price. For two score years they
have wrought faithfully for me. You say well, a mother in Israel!"

"I could wish that a Christian lady had no dealings with the
accursed race," said the Cluniac.

"You could wish folly," was the tart answer. "I am not as your
burgher folk, and on my own affairs I take no man's guiding, be he
monk or merchant. Willebald is long dead; may he sleep in peace, He
was no mate for me, but for what he gave me I repaid him in the coin
he loved best. He was a proud man when he walked through the Friday
Market with every cap doffed. He was ever the burgher, like the child
I bore him."

"I had thought the marriage more fruitful. They spoke of two
children, a daughter and a son."

The woman turned round in her bed so that she faced him. The
monkey whimpered and she cuffed its ears. Her face was sharp and
exultant, and for a sick person her eyes were oddly bright.

"The girl was Willebald's. A poor slip of vulgar stock with the
spirit of a house cat. I would have married her well, for she was
handsome after a fashion, but she thwarted me and chose to wed a lout
of a huckster in the Bredestreet. She shall have her portion from
Willebald's gold, but none from me. But Philip is true child of mine,
and sprung on both sides of high race. Nay, I name no names, and
before men he is of my husband's getting. But to you at the end of my
days I speak the truth. That son of wrath has rare blood in him.
Philip . . ."

The old face had grown kind. She was looking through the monk to
some happy country of vision. Her thoughts were retracing the roads
of time, and after the way of age she spoke them aloud. imperiously
she had forgotten her company.

"So long ago," came the tender voice. "It is years since they
told me he was dead among the heathen, fighting by the Lord Baldwin's
side. But I can see him as if it were yesterday, when he rode into
these streets in spring with April blooms at his saddle-bow. They
called him Phadbus in jest, for his face was like the sun....
Willebald, good dull man, was never jealous, and was glad that his
wife should be seen in brave company. Ah, the afternoons at the baths
when we sported like sea-nymphs and sang merry ballads! And the proud
days of Carnival where men and women consorted freely and without
guile like the blessed in Paradise! Such a tide for lovers! . . . Did
I not lead the dance with him at the Burgrave's festival, the twain
of us braver than morning? Sat I not with him in the garden of St.
Vaast, his head in my lap, while he sang me virelays of the south?
What was Willebald to me or his lean grey wife to him? He made me his
queen, me the burgher wife, at the jousting at Courtrai, when the
horses squealed like pigs in the mellay and I wept in fear for him.
Ah, the lost sweet days! Philip, my darling, you make a brave
gentleman, but you will not equal him who loved your mother."

The Cluniac was a man of the world whom no confidences could
scandalise. But he had business of his own to speak of that night,
and he thought it wise to break into this mood of reminiscence.

"The young lord, Philip, your son, madam? You have great plans
for him? What does he at the moment?"

The softness went out of the voice and the woman's gaze came
back to the chamber. "That I know not. Travelling the ways of the
world and plucking roadside fruits, for he is no home-bred and
womanish stripling. Wearing his lusty youth on the maids, I fear.
Nay, I forget. He is about to wed the girl of Avesnes and is already
choosing his bridal train. It seems he loves her. He writes me she
has a skin of snow and eyes of vair. I have not seen her. A green
girl, doubtless with a white face and cat's eyes. But she is of
Avesnes, and that blood comes pure from Clovis, and there is none
prouder in Hainault. He will husband her well, but she will be a
clever woman if she tethers to her side a man of my bearing. He will
be for the high road and the battle-front."

"A puissant and peaceable knight, I have heard tell," said the
Cluniac.

"Puissant beyond doubt, and peaceable when his will is served.
He will play boldly for great things and will win them. Ah, monk!
What knows a childless religious of a mother's certainty? 'Twas not
for nothing that I found Willebald and changed the cobbles of King's
Lynn for this fat country. It is gold that brings power, and the
stiffest royal neck must bend to him who has the deep coffers. It is
gold and his high hand that will set my Philip by the side of kings.
Lord Jesus, what a fortune I have made for him! There is coined money
at the goldsmiths' and in my cellars, and the ships at the ports, and
a hundred busy looms, and lands in Hainault and Artois, and fair
houses in Bruges and Ghent. Boats on the Rhine and many pack trains
between Antwerp and Venice are his, and a wealth of preciousness lies
in his name with the Italian merchants. Likewise there is this
dwelling of mine, with plenishing which few kings could buy. My sands
sink in the glass, but as I lie a-bed I hear the bustle of wains and
horses in the streets, and the talk of shipfolk, and the clatter of
my serving men beneath, and I know that daily, hourly, more riches
flow hither to furnish my son's kingdom."

The monk's eyes sparkled at this vision of wealth, and he
remembered his errand.

"A most noble heritage. But if the Sire God in His inscrutable
providence should call your son to His holy side, what provision have
you made for so mighty a fortune? Does your daughter then share?"

The face on the pillows became suddenly wicked and very old. The
eyes were lit with hate.

"Not a bezant of which I have the bequeathing. She has something
from Willebald, and her dull husband makes a livelihood. 'Twill
suffice for the female brats, of whom she has brought three into the
world to cumber it.... By the Gospels, she will lie on the bed she
has made. I did not scheme and toil to make gold for such leaden
souls."

"But if your most worthy son should die ere he has begot
children, have you made no disposition?" The monk's voice was pointed
with anxiety, for was not certainty on this point the object of his
journey? The woman perceived it and laughed maliciously.

"I have made dispositions. Such a chapel will be builded in the
New Kirk as Rome cannot equal. Likewise there will be benefactions
for the poor and a great endowment for the monks at St. Sauveur. If
my seed is not to continue on earth I will make favour in
Paradise."

"And we of Cluny, madam?" The voice trembled in spite of its
training.

"Nay I have not forgotten Cluny. Its Abbot shall have the gold
flagons from Jerusalem and some wherewithal in money. But what is
this talk? Philip will not die, and like his mother he loves Holy
Church and will befriend her in all her works.... Listen, father, it
is long past the hour when men cease from labour, and yet my
provident folk are busy. Hark to the bustle below. That will be the
convoy from the Vermandois. Jesu, what a night!"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Flurries of snow beat on windows, and draughts stirred the hot ashes
in the braziers and sent the smoke from them in odd spirals about the
chamber. It had become perishing cold, and the monkey among the
bedclothes whimpered and snuggled closer into his nest. There seemed
to be a great stir about the house-door. Loud voices were heard in
gusts, and a sound like a woman's cry. The head on the pillow was
raised to listen.

"A murrain on those folk. There has been bungling among the
pack-riders. That new man Derek is an oaf of oafs."

She rang her silver bell sharply and waited on the ready
footsteps. But none came. There was silence now below, an ominous
silence.

"God's curse upon this household," the woman cried. The monkey
whimpered again, and she took it by the scruff and tossed it to the
floor. "Peace, ape, or I will have you strangled. Bestir yourself,
father, and call Anton. There is a blight of deafness in this
place."

The room had suddenly lost its comfort and become cold and
desolate. The lamps were burning low and the coloured hangings were
in deep shadow. The storm was knocking fiercely at the lattice.

The monk rose with a shiver to do her bidding, but he was
forestalled. Steps sounded on the stairs and the steward entered. The
woman in the bed had opened her mouth to upbraid, when something in
his dim figure struck her silent.

The old man stumbled forward and fell on his knees beside
her.

"Madam, dear madam," he stammered, "ill news has come to this
house.... There is a post in from Avesnes.... The young master ...
"

"Philip," and the woman's voice rose to a scream. "What of my
son?"

"The lord has taken away what He gave. He is dead, slain in a
scuffle with highway robbers.... Oh, the noble young lord! The fair
young knight! Woe upon this stricken house!"

The woman lay very still, white the old man on his knees drifted
into broken prayers. Then he observed her silence, scrambled to his
feet in a panic, and lit two candles from the nearest brazier. She
lay back on the pillows in a deathly faintness, her face drained of
blood. Only her tortured eyes showed that life was still in her.

Her voice came at last, no louder than a whisper. It was soft
now, but more terrible than the old harshness.

"I follow Philip," it said. "Sic transit gloria.... Call me
Arnulf the goldsmith and Robert the scrivener. . . . Quick, man,
quick. I have much to do ere I die."

As the steward hurried out, the Cluniac, remembering his office,
sought to offer comfort, but in his bland worldling's voice the
consolations sounded hollow. She lay motionless, while he quoted the
Scriptures. Encouraged by her docility, he spoke of the certain
reward promised by Heaven to the rich who remembered the Church at
their death. He touched upon the high duties of his Order and the
handicap of its poverty. He bade her remember her debt to the Abbot
of Cluny.

She seemed about to speak and he bent eagerly to catch her
words.

"Peace, you babbler," she said. "I am done with your God. When I
meet Him I will outface Him. He has broken His compact and betrayed
me. My riches go to the Burgrave for the comfort of this city where
they were won. Let your broken rush of a Church wither and rot!"

Scared out of all composure by this blasphemy, the Cluniac fell
to crossing himself and mumbling invocations. The diplomat had
vanished and only the frightened monk remained. He would fain have
left the room had he dared, but the spell of her masterful spirit
held him. After that she spoke nothing. . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Again there was a noise on the stairs and she moved a little, as if
mustering her failing strength for the ultimate business. But it was
not Arnulf the gold smith. It was Anton, and he shook like a man on
his way to the gallows.

"Madam, dear madam," he stammered, again on his knees. "There is
another message. One has come from the Bredestreet with word of your
lady daughter. An hour ago she has borne a child. . .A lusty son,
madam."

The reply from the bed was laughter.

It began low and hoarse like a fit of coughing, and rose to the
high cackling mirth of extreme age. At the sound both Anton and the
monk took to praying. Presently it stopped, and her voice came full
and strong as it had been of old.

"Mea culpa," it said, "mea maxima culpa. I judged the Sire God
over hastily. He is merry and has wrought a jest on me. He has kept
His celestial promise in His own fashion. He takes my brave Philip
and gives me instead a suckling.... So be it. The infant has my
blood, and the race of Forester John will not die. Arnulf will have
an easy task.

He need but set the name of this new-born in Philip's place.
What manner of child is he, Anton? Lusty, you say, and well-formed? I
would my arms could have held him.... But I must be about my business
of dying. I will take the news to Philip."

Hope had risen again in the Cluniac's breast. It seemed that
here was a penitent. He approached the bed with a raised crucifix,
and stumbled over the whimpering monkey. The woman's eyes saw him and
a last flicker woke in them.

"Begone, man," she cried. "I have done with the world. Anton,
rid me of both these apes. And fetch the priest of St. Martin's, for
I would confess and be shriven. Yon curate is no doubt a fool, but he
serves my jesting God."