"There he goes," cried Signor Lomelini. "Poor man! this fool is a complete bugbear to him. To Father Peter he is like a gnat, or a great fly, which keeps buzzing about our ears all night, and gives us neither peace nor rest."
As he spoke, the personage who had been so long the subject of their conversation rode up, presenting to the eyes of Jean Charost a very different sort of man from that which he had expected to see, and, in truth, a very different personage altogether from the poetical idea of the jester which has been furnished to us by Shakspeare and others. Seigneur André, indeed, was not one of the most famous of his class, and he has neither been embalmed in fiction nor enrolled in history. The exceptions I believe, in truth have been taken generally for the types, and if we could trace the sayings and doings of all the jesters downward from the days of Charlemagne, we should find that nine out of ten were very dull people indeed. His lordship was a fat, gross-looking man of the middle age, with a countenance expressive of a good deal of sensuality--dull and heavy-looking, with a nose glowing with wine; bushy, overhanging eyebrows, and a fat, liquorish under lip. His stomach was large and protuberant, and his legs short; but still he rode his horse with a good, firm seat, though with what seemed to the eyes of Jean Charost a good deal of affected awkwardness of manner. There was an expression of fun and joviality about his face, it is true, which was a very good precursor to a joke, and, like the sauce of a French cook's composing, which often gives zest to a very insipid morsel, it made many a dull jest pass for wit. His eye, indeed, had an occasional fire in it, wild, wandering, mysterious, lighted up and going out on a sudden, which to a physician might probably have indicated the existence of some degree of mental derangement, but which, with ordinary persons, served at once to excite and puzzle curiosity.
"Ah, reverend signor," he exclaimed, as he pulled up his horse by Lomelini's side, "I am glad to find you so far in advance. It betokens that all good things of life will be provided for--that we shall not have to wait three hours at Juvisy for dinner, nor be treated with goat's flesh and rye bread, sour wine and stale salad."
"That depends upon circumstances, Seigneur André," replied Lomelini. "That his highness shall have a good dinner, I have provided for; but, good faith, the household must look out for themselves. In any other weather you would find eggs enough, and the water is generally excellent, but now it is frozen. But let me introduce you to Monsieur De Brecy, his highness's secretary."
"Ha! I kiss his fingers," cried the jester. "I asked for him all yesterday, hearing of his advent, but was not blessed with his presence. They told me he was in the nursery, and verily he seems a blessed babe. May I inquire how old you are, Signor De Brecy?"
"Like yourself, Seigneur André," replied Jean Charost, with a smile; "old enough to be wiser."
"Marvelous well answered!" exclaimed the jester. "The dear infant is a prodigy! Did you ever see any thing like that?" he continued, throwing back his black cloak, and exhibiting his large stomach, dressed in his party-colored garments, almost resting on the saddle-bow.
"Yes, often," answered Jean Charost. "I have seen it in men too lazy to keep down the flesh, too fond of good things to refrain from what is killing them, and too dull in the brain to let the wit ever wear the body."
A sort of wild, angry fire came up in the jester's face, and he answered, "Let me tell you there is more wit in that stomach than ever you can digest."
"Perhaps so," answered Jean Charost. "I doubt not in the least you have more brain under your belt than under your cap; but it is somewhat soft, I should think, in both places."