into the
open fireplace at La Mothe's back.

"Just what I was at your age! The same to a hair! A gay companion
generous of heart and purse. Yes," he went on, half seating himself on
the table-edge and sucking down the wine with slow appreciative gulps,
"'63; I knew I could not be mistaken, though it is four years since I
tasted it last. The palate, Monsieur La Mothe, is like nature and
never forgets. For that reason we should never outrage either."

"Four years!" repeated La Mothe with mock admiration, then remembering
that this was a poet of poets and should know his Villon, he quoted,
"'And where are the snows of Yester Year?'"

The narrow shoulders broadened with a start, the bright eyes grew yet
brighter, and a firmer set of the mouth gave the face that note of
strength it so sorely needed. If it were not that he was already deep
in his fourth bottle La Mothe would have said the wine had set his
blood on fire, warming him with a fictitious energy, so sudden and so
marked was the change.

"Ah ha!" he said, setting down the horn mug as he leaned towards La
Mothe, and this time the voice was as full and round as a woman's. "So
you know your Villon, do you? rascal that he was!"

"Was? Is Villon dead?"

"Dead! No! But his rascality is dead: dead but not forgotten!
Saints! what a dear sweet life it gave him while it lived, that same
rascality. 'Where are the snows of Yester Year?' That is the cry of
all the years after, say, four- or five-and-twenty." He paused, his
bright keen eyes watching La Mothe with a wistful humour in them, half
envious, half reminiscent. "Four-and-twenty! Up to that age it is,
Oh, for next year's suns! Oh, for the flowers of a new spring's
plucking! and ever after, 'Where are the snows of Yester Year?' I
think," he added, pursing his mouth reflectively, "that what the
priests call Hell is hot just because last year's snows never come
back."

"Gone!" said La Mothe, falling into his humour, "dead like Villon's
rascality, but as unforgotten. But are you sure Villon is alive?"

"Monsieur," and the little man slipped from the table-edge to his feet
and bowed, his eyes twinkling with an intense enjoyment, "I can vouch
for him as you can for Stephen La Mothe: I have the honour to present
to you Francois Villon, Master of Arts of Paris and of all the crafts
of this wicked world."

CHAPTER IX

FRANCOIS VILLON, POET AND GALLOWS-CHEAT

La Mothe stared up at him incredul