THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
laughing all the while to himself at Sir Rouf's poor wit and thick head. "I do not know about being hanged, since that is not a polite expression, nor one used by people of good breeding; but I am quite certain that you would feel it necessary to mount a ladder, tie a scarf rather tightly round your neck; and then begin to foot the mazles of the air, as I have said." "Ah, what would I give to have been nurtured in this land where air and wit are of equal sharpness; but to speak the truth the hot sun of Gascony spoilt my brains when I was quite a little boy." With that Sir Symon talked no more of marrying or hanging, but began to speak of fights and battles he had seen; and Sir Rouf looking at his broad shoulders and thick arms thought to himself "He may not have much to boast of in the way of brains but he would be an awkward customer to meet in a stricken field or joust or tournament." But some years afterwards, Sir Rouf having pondered these matters over in his leisure moments (for he could not eat or fight or drink or make love and think at the same time) all at once smote his head and said so that his wife could not hear him "he was certainly making an ass of me." But Sir Symon, after duly considering this affair, was forced to believe that if he married his dear Bertha, he would come to grief in some way or another, if not by rope than by axe, and to his mind there was not a pin to choose between either, and both were an abomination to him. Altogether he did not like to the look of things and almost wished he had been hanged in France, which was his native country;
[ 323 ]
