THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
seemed to forget her old trouble in this new one, for now her one desire was to smell the wondrous blossoms, and she longed for the scent continually and was always saying to herself "Oh, if I could but smell the flower!" Sir Roger, who as I have shown, had seen a good deal of the world in his time, had heard many strange stories, and talked with many strange people, endeavoured to laugh this notion out of his wife's head; for as he told her he had lived long enough to find out that all soils produced an abundant crop of lies, but especially the soil of the Levant, where fictions attained to a monstrous height and luxuriance. As for the man in brown and yellow he cursed him and denounced him for the most malicious and damnable liar that this world had ever generated, and swore by Corpus Domini, St. Michael the Archangel, the candid host of martyrs, and all the whole company of saints that if he ever came within the lordship again, he should go hot-foot to his father, the devil, and tell his tales to the fiends of hell. This was, it must be confessed, rather violent language, but Sir Roger was in fact a little angry with the man for turning Penhow upside down, making the girls giddier than they were before, and crazing Eva by his nonsensical tales which nobody in his wits credited, though the knight confessed that they were amusing enough to listen to. And if the traveller had returned it is probable that Gilbert Tapp would have treated him roughly and played him some scurvy tricks; but he knew better, and those who saw his vestment were never able to catch him up for he walked too
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