sake, sir, what do ye
with these poor folk?"

"Nay, what is that to you, my lad?" replied the functionary
suspiciously.

"Master, I'm a stranger, and athirst for knowledge."

"That is another matter. What are we doing? ahem. Why we--Dost hear,
Jacques? Here is a stranger seeks to know what we are doing," and the
two machines were tickled that there should be a man who did not know
something they happened to know. In all ages this has tickled. However,
the chuckle was brief and moderated by the native courtesy, and the
official turned to Gerard again. "What we are doing? hum!" and now he
hesitated, not from any doubt as to what he was doing, but because he
was hunting for a single word that should convey the matter.

"Ce que nous faisons, mon gars?--Mais--dam--NOUS TRANSVASONS."

"You decant? that should mean you pour from one vessel to another."

"Precisely." He explained that last year the town of Charmes had been
sore thinned by a pestilence, whole houses emptied and trades short of
hands. Much ado to get in the rye, and the flax half spoiled. So the
bailiff and aldermen had written to the duke's secretary; and the duke
he sent far and wide to know what town was too full. "That are we," had
the baillie of Toul writ back. "Then send four or five score of your
townsfolk," was the order. "Was not this to decant the full town into
the empty, and is not the good duke the father of his people, and will
not let the duchy be weakened, nor its fair towns laid waste by sword
nor pestilence; but meets the one with pike, and arbalest (touching his
cap to the sergeant and Denys alternately), and t'other with policy?
LONG LIVE THE DUKE!"

The pikemen of course were not to be outdone in loyalty; so they shouted
with stentorian lungs "LONG LIVE THE DUKE!" Then the decanted ones,
partly because loyalty was a non-reasoning sentiment in those days,
partly perhaps because they feared some further ill consequence should
they alone be mute, raised a feeble, tremulous shout, "Long live the
Duke!"

But, at this, insulted nature rebelled. Perhaps indeed the sham
sentiment drew out the real, for, on the very heels of that royal noise,
a loud and piercing wail burst from every woman's bosom, and a deep,
deep groan from every man's; oh! the air filled in a moment with womanly
and manly anguish. Judge what it must have been when the rude pikemen
halted unbidden, all confused; as if a wall of sorrow had started up
before them.

"En ava