THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
or later. Mind you, I do not know that they particularly needed this cautel, but at all events it made them be careful what they were about. But the Countess was sorry for Loyse.
Ending with these words his tale of Nether-went, our Rubrican upheaved himself from the wondrous chair, and stood up, looking round as who should say "you can find no fault in my relation, I believe." But we sat in a row with our heads on one side, each man holding his pipe to his lips, and puffing pensively, for we could not exactly discover what we thought of this story. At last Tom sat down again and filled his glass and his pipe and began to drink and smoke himself; for he was not going to wait to receive judgement like a felon before the justice. Then Nick Leonard commenced to say "'Tis not altogether a bad tale, but neither is it a good one, at least to my taste; there's too great a heat about those old ecclesiastical arraigns for July, and the fable seems to me somewhat of a hellish one." To this the Rubrican answered "Do you assert that my story, which I have told, is not a moral story?" "Nay, Nay," I cried out, "he says nothing of the kind, for 'tis assuredly a very moral story, but there's a whiff of sulphur about it for all that, and you know, Master Rubrican, that the old records are apt to be strongly flavoured." "How is it," put in Phil Ambrose, "that the ink in which such things are written doth never lose its sheen, and that the gold and gules, azure and purple are still as fresh as though the pen were hardly
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