THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
of the townsfolk very perfectly; but found nothing of solid advantage therein, until he had been in Abergavenny better than six months. And one evening as he was passing along a bye street with his companion, he saw a large well-compacted house, as fair as, or fairer than any in the town; but on the face of it there appeared but one lattice window, and this high up above the door. "Who dwells there?" said he to Master John. "Why nobody exactly knows," answered the lawyer, "for the inhabitants of this house are what is called quiet people who mind their own business so well that they give other folk no opportunity of helping them. But I believe that one Maurice Torlesse doth actually dwell here, with two servants, an old man and an old woman, very hideous to behold, and also his daughter whose name I know not, though I have seen her." "Where did you catch a sight of her?" asked Philip, pricking up his ears, for he loved mysteries. "At that very lattice I have once seen the lady, as I passed below, and by corpus Domini I thought I should have swooned away." "Was she then so foul to look upon?" "Sir Philip, Sir Philip, she was as fair as a lady of færy and had oh! (here the little man sighed deeply to himself) such eyes. 'Las! they pierced utterly to my heart, and taught me that all the beauties I had seen before were mere clumsy wenches. And I have seen her also going to the Mass and vesper-music at the Monastic Church, but shrouded and hidden by a thick veil and attended by the old hideous woman, who seems to be her governess." "Her father
[ 275 ]
