“Fie, Cockie!” he cried, as he looked up, “dost thou not know ’tis a wicked sin to mock me when I am learning the holy mass music?”
But Cockie only screwed his head to one side, shook his empty spoon, and peered down with an impudent stare, as with a sigh the little boy once more applied himself to his task. In a few moments, however, he was again interrupted, this time by a call from beyond the kitchen:
“Geoffrey! Geoffrey! come hither and help catch this fowl for the Count Hugo’s soup to-morrow!”
After a hot chase, Geoffrey succeeded in catching the fat hen and handing her over to the white-capped cook of the inn kitchen, and then he once more sat down and took up his parchment; for though a serving boy through the week, on Sunday he took his place with the little choristers of the Dives cathedral, and Father Anselm had allowed him to take the score home with him, so that he might practise in his leisure moments.
But as he now tried to go over the black notes, there was a mournful cadence to every tone, for Geoffrey was very unhappy. Usually he was gay as a bird, and indeed sang very like one; but to-day he had a weight on his mind, as he sat there in the courtyard of the quaint old inn.
It was long, long ago that Geoffrey lived—nearly six hundred years. The inn in which he served had been built in the Norman town of Dives nearly three centuries earlier by the great Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, whose name, which in French (for Normandy is a part of France) is Guillaume-le-Conquérant, the inn still bore in Geoffrey’s time as it bears to this day. The Duke William had built the house because he wished to have some safe and pleasant stopping place during the time he was overseeing the finishing and freighting of the fleet of boats which lay near by in the river Dives, and in which he meant to sail to the conquest of England.
And so, with such illustrious beginning, the inn had become very famous among the nobles of Normandy, and grown larger and larger, till, in the days when Geoffrey lived, it was a very beautiful place indeed. The courtyard, which one entered through an arched gateway covered with guelder roses, was surrounded by ancient wooden buildings; their dark mossy beams were put together with white plaster, and their innumerable picturesque peaks and gables and wooden galleries and winding stairways were richly overhung with masses of the most lovely vines; for roses, wistarias, clematis, and jasmines clambered everywhere. There were two gardens also; one for the kitchen, the other full of lilies and clove pinks and French daisies, and numberless sweet old-fashioned flowers; for Monsieur Jean, the innkeeper, had much taste and loved both flowers and birds. Indeed, besides several cockatoos, he always kept dozens of peacocks that trailed about the courtyard squawking and spreading their gorgeous tails every time a new guest entered the gateway. There were fine pigeons, too, and rabbits and chickens, and no end of interesting things.
Geoffrey thought it a charming place to live, and he did not in the least mind the work he had to do; for all were kind to him, and moreover, he was happy in being able to give some of his earnings to his family at home, who were very poor. His father was a peasant living on the estate of the young Count Boni, of Château Beauvais, and had it not been for the kind-heartedness of this count, the poor peasant would have had hard shift to keep his little children in bread; for in those days the country had been so wasted by wars that the peasant folk had almost nothing left on which to live. But the Count Boni had always been most generous and considerate to the people on his estate, and especially to Geoffrey’s father, who was honest, and intelligent above his class. The count it was who had secured for Geoffrey the place at the inn, and it was he also who had spoken to the monks of Dives of the boy’s sweet voice, so that the good Fathers had become interested, and were taking much pains in teaching him music.
And now we come to the reason that Geoffrey was so unhappy as he sat under the plane-tree, vainly trying to practise his lesson; for he was thinking all the while of a deadly peril that threatened this good Count Boni, to whom he was deeply grateful for so many things, and whom he truly loved next to his own father.
His knowledge of the count’s danger had come about in this way. It had happened that, the day before, Geoffrey had been sent to the Château Beauvais, which was not far distant from Dives, to carry some rabbits which Monsieur Jean had promised to Isabeau, the little daughter of the count. When Geoffrey reached the château and inquired for the little Lady Isabeau, he had been sent into the garden, and there he found her crying as if her heart would break! Now this grieved Geoffrey very much indeed; as he quite worshiped the gracious little girl who used often to visit their cottage when he lived at home, and who had sometimes gaily carried him back with her for a day’s happy romp in the beautiful château grounds.