hence giving easy understanding as to why he lost favor at Fontainebleau.
"Ah me!" sighed Jacques. "You, André, should have heard the rare stories told by old Capeluche, the son of the son of the son of the son of a headsman, unto four generations. A proper man with the sword, forsooth! There was the Duc de la Trémouille whom old Capeluche led to the block and permitted to begin the Lord’s prayer, but when the noble duke got as far as 'et nos inducas intentationem' he had drawled it so slowly that the good Capeluche, losing patience, swung his blade and made such a clean stroke of it that the head, though severed, remained in exact place while from the lips the prayer continued—'Sed libera nos a malo'—until the faithful Capeluche nudged the body and the head toppled off.
"A wonderful arm, one may say," continued Jacques, "but a wonderful weapon, too, and the same one now resting with the Capeluche in Peptonneau. Old Capeluche told me that on one occasion, when Madam Bonacieux, a famous lady-in-waiting—now dead, may the Saints preserve her!—brought her baby to his house, the sword rattled furiously in its closet, which was an omen that the child would some day die by the self-same sword wielded by the right arm of a Capeluche unless then and there Madam Bonacieux allowed her baby's neck to be pricked by the point of the sword until blood showed."
"And did Madam Bonacieux permit it?" asked André, curiously.
"That she did not," replied Jacques. "She laughed in old Capeluche's face and ran out of his house, and thereat the old man was furious, vowing that the child would some day have its neck severed by the famous sword."
WHILE thus engaged in conversation, old Jacques had steadily led the way by a short cut through the wood, which presently brought them out of breath to the village, ahead of the coach and horses.
The village of Peptonneau was small, having less than a thousand inhabitants, its houses being of stone, and built close together in the manner of the gregarious Latin. Most striking of these structures in their uniformity was one near the center square painted a brilliant red.
In the clear sunshine of that Thirteenth Century July day, the dwelling stood out like a veritable lighthouse, and thither, giving no heed to the leper who passed in the opposite direction, fingerless, noseless, the bell at his neck ringing dolefully, the two peasants complacently padded their barefoot way.
A tall, lean, but well-thewed individual in leather jerkin and girdle, lounged in front of the house of red. With cynical eyes he viewed the approach of the peasants.
"In five minutes, M. Capeluche," announced Jacques, a trifle breathlessly, "a coach and riders will arrive."
"And you, old cock, trot hither from your berry-picking to tell me that bit of famous gossip?"
"Ay! I'm an old cock, and many years have passed o'er my head, Monsieur, but it is a head not destined to be removed by a Capeluche, nor yet by the son of a Capeluche."
"Sirrah! Daily I give thanks to the Holy Virgin," retorted the headsman, "that the delicate skill of a Capeluche is not for the hairy necks of such canaille as you."
"Who knows," sturdily replied Jacques, "as to the quality or quantity of hair on the neck of one who draws near in yonder coach?"
The grunt that left the headsman betrayed his interest. He peered down the road.
"What do you mean by that?"
Old Jacques permitted himself a toothless grin. It was not often that a Peptonneau villager could stir the equanimity of the great one, whose
