A monastery!" cried he joyfully; "I go no further lest I fare worse." He applied at the postern, and on stating whence he came and whither bound, was instantly admitted and directed to the guestchamber, a large and lofty room, where travellers were fed and lodged gratis by the charity of the monastic orders.Soon the bell tinkled for vespers, and Gerard entered the church of the convent, and from his place heard a service sung so exquisitely, it seemed the choir of heaven.But one thing was wanting, Margaret was not there to hear it with him, and this made him sigh bitterly in mid rapture.At supper, plain but wholesome and abundant food, and good beer, brewed in the convent, were set before him and his fellows, and at an early hour they were ushered into a large dormitory, and the number being moderate, had each a truckle bed, and for covering, sheepskins dressed with the fleece on; but previously to this a monk, struck by his youth and beauty, questioned him, and soon drew out his projects and his heart.When he was found to be convent bred, and going alone to Rome, he became a personage, and in the morning they showed him over the convent and made him stay and dine in the refectory.They also pricked him a route on a slip of parchment, and the prior gave him a silver guilden to help him on the road, and advised him to join the first honest company he should fall in with, "and not face alone the manifold perils of the way.""Perils?" said Gerard to himself.
That evening he came to a small straggling town where was one inn;it had no sign; but being now better versed in the customs of the country, he detected it at once by the coats of arms on its walls.
These belonged to the distinguished visitors who had slept in it at different epochs since its foundation, and left these customary tokens of their patronage.At present it looked more like a mausoleum than a hotel.Nothing moved nor sounded either in it or about it.Gerard hammered on the great oak door: no answer.He hallooed: no reply.After a while he hallooed louder, and at last a little round window, or rather hole in the wall, opened, a man's head protruded cautiously, like a tortoise's from its shell, and eyed Gerard stolidly, but never uttered a syllable.
"Is this an inn?" asked Gerard, with a covert sneer.
The head seemed to fall into a brown study; eventually it nodded, but lazily.
"Can I have entertainment here?"
Again the head pondered and ended by nodding, but sullenly, and seemed a skull overburdened with catch-penny interrogatories.
"How am I to get within, an't please you?"At this the head popped in, as if the last question had shot it;and a hand popped out, pointed round the corner of the building, and slammed the window.
Gerard followed the indication, and after some research discovered that the fortification had one vulnerable part, a small low door on its flank.As for the main entrance, that was used to keep out thieves and customers, except once or twice in a year, when they entered together, i.e., when some duke or count arrived in pomp with his train of gaudy ruffians.
Gerard, having penetrated the outer fort, soon found his way to the stove (as the public room was called from the principal article in it), and sat down near the oven, in which were only a few live embers that diffused a mild and grateful heat.
After waiting patiently a long time, he asked a grim old fellow with a long white beard, who stalked solemnly in, and turned the hour-glass, and then was stalking out, when supper would be.The grisly Ganymede counted the guests on his fingers- "When I see thrice as many here as now." Gerard groaned.
The grisly tyrant resented the rebellious sound."Inns are not built for one," said he; "if you can't wait for the rest, look out for another lodging."Gerard sighed.
At this the greybeard frowned.
After a while company trickled steadily in, till full eighty persons of various conditions were congregated, and to our novice the place became a chamber of horrors; for here the mothers got together and compared ringworms, and the men scraped the mud off their shoes with their knives, and left it on the floor, and combed their long hair out, inmates included, and made their toilet, consisting generally of a dry rub.Water, however, was brought in ewers.Gerard pounced on one of these, but at sight of the liquid contents lost his temper and said to the waiter, "Wash you first your water, and then a man may wash his hands withal.""An' it likes you not, seek another inn!"Gerard said nothing, but went quietly and courteously besought an old traveller to tell him how far it was to the next inn.
"About four leagues."
Then Gerard appreciated the grim pleasantry of the unbending sire.
That worthy now returned with an armful of wood, and counting the travellers, put on a log for every six, by which act of raw justice the hotter the room the more heat he added.Poor Gerard noticed this little flaw in the ancient man's logic, but carefully suppressed every symptom of intelligence, lest his feet should have to carry his brains four leagues farther that night.
When perspiration and suffocation were far advanced, they brought in the table-cloths; but oh, so brown, so dirty, and so coarse;they seemed like sacks that had been worn out in agriculture and come down to this, or like shreads from the mainsail of some worn-out ship.The Hollander, who had never seen such linen even in nightmare, uttered a faint cry.
"what is to do?" inquired a traveller.Gerard pointed ruefully to the dirty sackcloth.The other looked at it with lack lustre eye, and comprehended nought.