But when he approached the barrier where the skirmish was to take place, the girl laid hold of his lance, which was as straight and stiff as a cow-keeper’s horn, and when she felt how hard and big it was, she was sore affrighted, and fell to crying aloud, saying that her shield was not of a strength to receive and bear the blows of so huge a weapon.
All his efforts notwithstanding, the husband could not persuade her to joust with him, and this bickering endured throughout the night, without his being able to do aught, which much displeased our bridegroom. Nevertheless, he abode patient, hoping to make up for the time lost on the following night; but ‘twas the same as on the first night, even so on the third, and even so up to the fifteenth, matters remaining just as I have related.
And when fifteen days had passed since the young couple were wed, they still not having come together, the mother came to visit her pupil, and after a thousand questions, spoke to the girl of her husband, demanding what sort of a man he was and whether he did his duty well. And the girl answered that he was very well as a man, and was a quiet and a peaceable.
“But,” said the mother, “doth he do what he ought to do?”
“Yea,” quoth the girl, “but....”
“But what?” said the mother. “Thou art keeping something back, I am assured. Tell me forthwith and conceal naught; for I must know now. Is he a man capable of performing his marital duties in the way I taught thee?”
The poor girl, being thus pressed, was obliged to own that he had not yet done the business, but she did not say that she was the cause of the delay, and that she had always refused the combat.
When her mother heard this sad news, God knows what a disturbance she made, swearing by all her gods that she would soon find a remedy for that, for she was well acquainted with the Judge of Rouen, who was her friend, and would favour her cause.
“The marriage must be annulled,” said she, “and I have no doubt but that I shall find a way, and thou mayst be sure, my child, that before two days are past thou wilt be divorced and married to another man, who will not let thee rest in peace all that time. Dost leave the business to me.”
The good woman, half beside herself, went and related her wrong to her husband, the father of the girl, and told him that they had lost their daughter, and adducing many reasons why the marriage should be annulled.