Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/269

 he, "you should have enlarged upon the shadowy terrors of Constance's midnight journeys to her lover, and have made the warriors of the arras play her all manner of tricks, as is customary in Romances. Likewise you fell short in the building of the wall, and did not hold your torches on high and make them flame and smoke and cast strange lights around, nor did you cause the harness of the men-at-arms to glitter, nor the moon to shine with a calm golden effulgence on that fantastic scene." "I have told the tale as I received it," answered Piero, "and all these graces that you speak of can very easily be conceived by the hearers, without the trouble of recounting them, since such ornaments are, as you say, common to all romances." "And now, sirs," broke in Coppo Cacci, the cunning player of the violin, "it is time for you to pay your shot, and this you shall do by devising us some history of your own country, and in no other way whatsoever." "Nay," said Nick Leonard, "we will content you in both ways, for I am in the humour to tell a merry case, and I think I have one in my head which will be found not altogether unpleasant, though it is but an old song." And Andrea answered, "We listen and await your musick, for I expect it will be no less."