Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/231

 backbiters and most malicious, and if they heard your name would turn up their eyes and whine out 'Alas! alas! he tells very wanton tales. I fear he lives but lewdly. "Truly, father, I believe you speak the truth," answered bymy [sic] lord, "and for the future I will follow your counsels and make these poor sinners die most miserably and wretchedly; or better still, Eva shall live and turn into a shrew, and so make Rupert's days a burthen unto him." And now the sky began to darken, and the mists to rise from the river, so we called our host and paid our shot, and went forth into the town, that was by this time beginning to resound with genuine mirth and to exhibit pleasant personages far gone in Silurianism. But the Cursal Canon gave us his blessing and bade us farewell, for he was purposed to ride as far as Abergavenny and to lie there for the night. And at his departure we were sorry, for he was a devout, fat man, and we had hoped to hear from his lips some fine story of the old Decretal Days, or other pleasant case drawn from the Records of St. David's Chapter. Nevertheless we passed an hour or two pleasantly, wandering to and fro among the Silurians, and watching their amusements, and above all we delighted to hear odd scraps of talk as folk went by us, and strove to make sense out of such phrases as "came softly and scraped the key-hole," "she knows you not yet, and asked me the other day who you were," "it was for the third time and her mother." But I strove all the while to find out the musick I had heard from the garden, being desirous of hearing them play