Now you must know that the butcher’s wife was acquainted with many of the servants of these preachers, and she saw them pass her house, some bearing wine, some pasties, some tarts, and so many other things that it was wonderful.
She could not refrain from asking what feast was going forward at their house? And the answer was that all this dainties were for such an one,—that is to say her monk—who had some great people to dinner.
“And who are they?” she asked.
“Faith! I know not,” he said. “I only carry my wine to the door, and there our master takes it from us. I know not who is there!”
“I see,” she said, “that it is a secret. Well, well! go on and do your duty.”
Soon there passed another servant, of whom she asked the same questions, and he replied as his fellow had done, but rather more, for he said,
“I believe there is a damsel there;—but she wishes her presence to be neither seen nor known.”
She guessed who it was, and was in a great rage, and said to herself that she would keep an eye upon the woman who had robbed her of the love of her friend, and, no doubt, if she had met her she would have read her a pretty lesson, and scratched her face.
She set forth with the intention of executing the plan she had conceived. When she arrived at the place, she waited long to meet the person she most hated in the world, but she had not the patience to wait till her rival came out of the chamber where the feast was being held, so at last she determined to use a ladder that a tiler, who was at work at the roof, had left there whilst he went to dinner.
She placed this ladder against the kitchen chimney of the house, with the intention of dropping in and saluting the company, for she knew well that she could not enter in any other way.