"'Why, Bon Bec, what is to do?' quoth he.'I have made an ill bargain.Oh, perverse heart, that turneth from doctrine.' So Ibade him keep his breath to cool his broth, ne'er would I shame my folk with singing ribald songs.'Then,' says he sulkily, 'the first fire we light by the wayside, clap thou on the music box! so 'twill make our pot boil for the nonce; but with your Good people, let us peak and pine, Cut tristful mugs, and miaul and whine Thorough our nosen chaunts divine never, never, never.Ye might as well go through Lorraine crying, Mulleygrubs, Mulleygrubs, who'll buy my Mulleygrubs!' So we fared on, bad friends.But I took a thought, and prayed him hum me one of his naughty ditties again.Then he brightened, and broke forth into ribaldry like a nightingale.Finger in ears stuffed I.'No words; naught but the bare melody.' For oh, Margaret, note the sly malice of the Evil One! Still to the scurviest matter he wedded the tunablest ditties."Catherine."That is true as Holy Writ."
Sybrandt."How know you that, mother?"
Cornelis."He! he! he!"
Eli."Whisht, ye uneasy wights, and let me hear the boy.He is wiser than ye; wiser than his years.""'What tomfoolery is this,' said he; yet he yielded to me, and soon I garnered three of his melodies; but I would not let Cul de Jatte wot the thing I meditated.'Show not fools nor bairns unfinished work,' saith the byword.And by this time 'twas night, and a little town at hand, where we went each to his inn; for my master would not yield to put off his rags and other sores till morning; nor I to enter an inn with a tatterdemalion.So we were to meet on the road at peep of day.and indeed, we still lodged apart, meeting at morn and parting at eve outside each town we lay at.And waking at midnight and cogitating, good thoughts came down to me, and sudden my heart was enlightened.I called to mind that my Margaret had withstood the taking of the burgomaster's purse.
''Tis theft,' said you; 'disguise it how ye will.' But I must be wiser than my betters; and now that which I had as good as stolen, others had stolen from me.As it came so it was gone.Then I said, 'Heaven is not cruel, but just;' and I vowed a vow, to repay our burgomaster every shilling an' I could.And I went forth in the morning sad, but hopeful.I felt lighter for the purse being gone.
My master was at the gate becrutched.I told him I'd liever have seen him in another disguise.'Beggars must not be choosers,' said he.However, soon he bade me untruss him, for he felt sadly.His head swam.I told him forcefully to deform nature thus could scarce be wholesome.He answered none; but looked scared, and hand on head.By-and-by he gave a groan, and rolled on the ground like a ball, and writhed sore.I was scared, and wist not what to do, but went to lift him; but his trouble rose higher and higher, he gnashed his teeth fearfully, and the foam did fly from his lips;and presently his body bended itself like a bow, and jerked and bounded many times into the air.I exorcised him; it but made him worse.There was water in a ditch hard by, not very clear; but the poor creature struggling between life and death, I filled my hat withal, and came flying to souse him.Then my lord laughed in my face.'Come, Bon Bec, by thy white gills, I have not forgotten my trade.' I stood with watery hat in hand, glaring.'Could this be feigning?' 'What else?' said he.'Why, a real fit is the sorriest thing; but a stroke with a feather compared with mine.Art still betters nature.' 'But look, e'en now blood trickleth from your nose,' said I.'Ay, ay, pricked my nostrils with a straw.' 'But ye foamed at the lips.' 'Oh, a little soap makes a mickle foam.' And he drew out a morsel like a bean from his mouth.'Thank thy stars, Bon Bec,' says he, 'for leading thee to a worthy master.Each day his lesson.To-morrow we will study the cul de bois and other branches.To-day, own me prince of demoniacs, and indeed of all good fellows.' Then, being puffed up, he forgot yesterday's grudge, and discoursed me freely of beggars; and gave me, who eftsoons thought a beggar was a beggar, and there an end, the names and qualities of full thirty sorts of masterful and crafty mendicants in France and Germany and England; his three provinces;for so the poor, proud knave yclept those kingdoms three; wherein his throne it was the stocks I ween.And outside the next village one had gone to dinner, and left his wheelbarrow.So says he, 'I'll tie myself in a knot, and shalt wheel me through; and what with my crippledom and thy piety, a-wheeling of thy poor old dad, we'll bleed the bumpkins of a dacha-saltee.' I did refuse.I would work for him; but no hand would have in begging.'And wheeling an "asker" in a barrow, is not that work?' said he; 'then fling yon muckle stone in to boot: stay, I'll soil it a bit, and swear it is a chip of the holy 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.
