Stories By English Authors: France (Selected by Scribners) | Page 8

may dare to say that," agreed Villon, infinitely relieved. "As big a
rogue as there is between here and Jerusalem. He turned up his toes like
a lamb. But it was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you've seen dead
men in your time, my lord?" he added, glancing at the armour.

"Many," said the old man. "I have followed the wars, as you imagine."
Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just taken up again.
"Were any of them bald?" he asked.
"Oh yes, and with hair as white as mine."
"I don't think I should mind the white so much," said Villon. "His was
red." And he had a return of his shuddering and tendency to laughter,
which he drowned with a great draught of wine. "I'm a little put out
when I think of it," he went on. "I knew him--damn him! And then the
cold gives a man fancies--or the fancies give a man cold, I don't know
which."
"Have you any money?" asked the old man.
"I have one white," returned the poet, laughing. "I got it out of a dead
jade's stocking in a porch. She was as dead as Caesar, poor wench, and
as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a
hard winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like me."
"I," said the old man, "am Enguerrand de la Feuillee, seigneur de
Brisetout, bailie du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?"
Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. "I am called Francis Villon,"
he said, "a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know some Latin,
and a deal of vice. I can make Chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and
roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall
not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this
night forward I am your lordship's very obsequious servant to
command."
"No servant of mine," said the knight. "My guest for this evening, and
no more."
"A very grateful guest," said Villon, politely, and he drank in dumb
show to his entertainer.

"You are shrewd," began the old man, tapping his forehead, "very
shrewd; you have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small
piece of money off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of
theft?"
"It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my lord."
"The wars are the field of honour," returned the old man, proudly.
"There a man plays his life upon the cast; he fights in the name of his
lord the king, his Lord God, and all their lordships the holy saints and
angels."
"Put it," said Villon, "that I were really a thief, should I not play my life
also, and against heavier odds?"
"For gain, but not for honour."
"Gain?" repeated Villon, with a shrug. "Gain! The poor fellow wants
supper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why, what are
all these requisitions we hear so much about? If they are not gain to
those who take them, they are loss enough to the others. The
men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his nails to
buy them wine and wood. I have seen a good many ploughmen
swinging on trees about the country; ay, I have seen thirty on one elm,
and a very poor figure they made; and when I asked some one how all
these came to be hanged, I was told it was because they could not
scrape together enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms."
"These things are a necessity of war, which the low-born must endure
with constancy. It is true that some captains drive overhard; there are
spirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed many follow
arms who are no better than brigands."
"You see," said the poet, "you cannot separate the soldier from the
brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with circumspect
manners? I steal a couple of mutton-chops, without so much as
disturbing people's sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the
less wholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously

on a trumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully
into the bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I
am a rogue and a dog, and hanging's too good for me--with all my heart;
but just ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of us
he lies awake to curse on cold nights."
"Look at us two," said his lordship. "I am old, strong, and honoured. If
I were