e was,
thank God, set on his feet, and if he had scolded his wife before he was
this time harder upon her than ever, for she had consented, in spite of
his forbidding her, to dishonour him and herself.

"Alas," said she, "and where is the woman bold enough to oppose a man so
hasty and violent as he was, when you yourself, armed and accoutred and
so valiant,--and to whom he did more wrong than he did to me--did not
dare to attack him, and defend me?"

"That is no answer," he replied. "Unless you had liked, he would never
have attained his purpose. You are a bad and disloyal woman."

"And you," said she, "are a cowardly, wicked, and most blamable man; for
I am dishonoured since, through obeying you, I gave a rendezvous to the
Scot. Yet you have not the courage to undertake the defence of the wife
who is the guardian of your honour. For know that I would rather have
died than consent to this dishonour, and God knows what grief I feel,
and shall always feel as long as I live, whilst he to whom I looked for
help suffered me to be dishonoured in his presence."

He believed that she would not have allowed the Scot to tumble her if
she had not taken pleasure in it, but she maintained that she was forced
and could not resist, but left the resistance to him and he did not
fulfil his charge. Thus they both wrangled and quarrelled, with many
arguments on both sides. But at any rate, the husband was cuckolded and
deceived by the Scot in the manner you have heard.

*****

STORY THE FIFTH -- THE DUEL WITH THE BUCKLE-STRAP. [5]

By Philippe De Laon.

_The fifth story relates two judgments of Lord Talbot. How a Frenchman
was taken prisoner (though provided with a safe-conduct) by an
Englishman, who said that buckle-straps were implements of war, and who
was made to arm himself with buckle-straps and nothing else, and meet
the Frenchman, who struck him with a sword in the presence of Talbot.
The other, story is about a man who robbed a church, and who was made to
swear that he would never enter a church again._

Lord Talbot (whom may God pardon) who was, as every one knows, so
victorious as leader of the English, gave in his life two judgments
which were worthy of being related and held in perpetual remembrance,
and in order that the said judgments should be known, I will relate
them briefly in this my first story, though it is the fifth amongst the
others. I will tell it thus.

During the time that the cursed and pes