“Nay, nay; if you would but look at it, and hold your parrot tongues. But you will be talking. So I have turned it to the wall for ever. Would I were dead, and buried in it for my coffin!”
Gerard reflected.
“I accept the condition. Show me the picture! I can but hold my peace.”
Pietro went and turned its face, and put it in the best light the room afforded, and coiled himself again on his chest, with his eye, and stiletto, glittering.
The picture represented the Virgin and Christ, flying through the air in a sort of cloud of shadowy cherubic faces; underneath was a landscape, forty or fifty miles in extent, and a purple sky above.
Gerard stood and looked at it in silence. Then he stepped close, and looked. Then he retired as far off as he could, and looked; but said not a word.
When he had been at this game half an hour, Pietro cried out querulously and somewhat inconsistently: “well, have you not a word to say about it?”
Gerard started. “I cry your mercy; I forgot there were three of us here. Ay, I have much to say.” And he drew his sword.
“Alas! alas!” cried Pietro, jumping in terror from his lair. “What wouldst thou?”
“Marry, defend myself against thy bodkin, signor; and at due odds, being, as aforesaid, a Dutchman. Therefore, hold aloof, while I deliver judgment, or I will pin thee to the wall like a cockchafer.”