"Gold!" repeated the other, tipsily. "What—what for? To—to help some fool to paradise—or purgatory? 'Tis for the Church I beg, good people. The holy Church—Church I say!"
Winking and blinking, seeing nothing before him, he held out a trembling hand. "The piece of gold—give it to me!" he mumbled.
"Yes; in exchange for your cloak," answered the jester.
"My cloak, thou horse-leech! Sell my skin for—piece of gold! Want my cloak? Take it!" And the dissembler rolled over, extending his arms. The jester grasped the garment by the sleeves and with some difficulty whipped it from him.
"Now hand me—the money and—cover me with rags that—I may sleep," continued the beer-bibber. "So"—as he grasped the money the fool gave him and stretched himself luxuriously beneath a noisome litter of cast-off clothes and rubbish—"I languish in ecstasies! The angels—are singing around me."
With growing surprise and ill-humor had the woman observed this novel proceeding, and now, when the jester had himself donned the false friar's gown, she said grudgingly:
"You did not give him one of the five pieces?"
"No; there are still five left."
"A bit of gold for a cloak!" she grumbled. "It is overmuch. But there!" Unfastening a door that looked out upon the field. "Give me the money and be gone."
He grasped the bridle of the horse, handed her the promised reward, and, drawing the hood of the monk's garment over his head, led the nag out into the open air. The door closed quickly behind him and he heard the wooden bolt as it shot into place. Above the dark outlines of the forest, the moon, full-orbed, now shone in the sky, with a myriad attendant stars, its silver beams flooding the open spaces and revealing every detail, soft, dreamy, yet distinct. A languorous, redolent air just stirred the waving grain, on which rested a glossy shimmer.