Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/259

 yet natheless will I tell of it, to the intent that men may beware thereby, and truly for no other cause.

He put his ounce of copper in the crucible and straightway set it on the fire, and cast powder in, and made the priest to blow and in his working to stoop, as he did before, and all was but a knavish trick; as he list, he made the priest his ape. And afterward he cast it into the mould, and put it at last in the pan of water; and he put in his own hand. And in his sleeve (as ye heard me tell before) he had a thin plate of silver. The cursed hind, slyly he took it out—the priest knowing naught of his false cunning—and in the pan's bottom he left it, and fumbled to and fro in the water, and took up wondrous privily the copper plate and hid it; and caught him by the breast, and spake to him and said thus in his sporting, "Stoop adown, by the mass, ye be to blame; help me now as I did you a while ago. Put in your hand and look what is there." The priest took up anon his plate of silver, and then said the canon, "Let us go with these three plates which we have wrought to some goldsmith, and know if they be worth somewhat; for I would not by my faith, for mine hood, that they were other than pure and fine silver, and that shall straightway be proved."

Unto the goldsmith they went with these three plates and put them to the test with fire and hammer; no man might say but they were as they ought to be.

Who was happier than this besotted priest? Never nightingale joyed better to sing in the season of May, never was bird gladder of the morn, nor ever had lady more delight to carol or to speak of love and womanhood, nor knight to do an hardy deed in arms to stand in the grace of his lady dear, than had this priest to gain knowledge of this sorry craft; and thus he