, swearing like troopers when they lost. And
how about midnight a sly monk had stolen out, but had by him and others
been as cannily followed into the garden, and seen to thrust his hand
into the ivy and out with a rope-ladder. With this he had run up on
the wall, which was ten feet broad, yet not so nimbly but what a russet
kirtle had popped up from the outer world as quick as he; and so to
billing and cooing: that this situation had struck him as rather feline
than ecclesiastical, and drawn from him the appropriate comment of a
"mew!" The monks had joined the mewsical chorus, and the lay visitor
shrieked and been sore discomforted; but Abelard only cried, "What, are
ye there, ye jealous miauling knaves? ye shall caterwaul to some tune
to-morrow night. I'll fit every man-jack of ye with a fardingale." That
this brutal threat had reconciled him to stay another day--at Gerard's
request.

Gerard groaned.

Meantime, unable to disconcert so brazen a monk, and the demoiselle
beginning to whimper, they had danced caterwauling in a circle, then
bestowed a solemn benediction on the two wall-flowers, and off to
the parlour, where they found a pair lying dead drunk, and other
two affectionate to tears. That they had straightway carried off the
inanimate, and dragged off the loving and lachymose, kicked them all
merrily each into his cell.

"And so shut up in measureless content."

Gerard was disgusted: and said so.

Denys chuckled, and proceeded to tell him how the next day he and the
young monks had drawn the fish-ponds and secreted much pike, carp,
tench, and eel for their own use: and how, in the dead of night, he had
been taken shoeless by crooked ways into the chapel, a ghost-like place,
being dark, and then down some steps into a crypt below the chapel
floor, where suddenly paradise had burst on him.

"'Tis there the holy fathers retire to pray," put in Gerard.

"Not always," said Denys; "wax candles by the dozen were lighted, and
princely cheer; fifteen soups maigre, with marvellous twangs of venison,
grouse, and hare in them, and twenty different fishes (being Friday),
cooked with wondrous art, and each he between two buxom lasses, and each
lass between two lads with a cowl; all but me: and to think I had to woo
by interpreter. I doubt the knave put in three words for himself and
one for me; if he didn't, hang him for a fool. And some of the weaker
vessels were novices, and not wont to hold good wine; had to be co