Good brothers mine, my mind it doth misgive me.The deeper Ithrust the more there be.Mayhap if these bones could tell their tale they would make true men's flesh creep that heard it.""Alas! young man, what hideous fancies are these! The bones are bones of beeves, and sheep, and kids, and not, as you think, of men and women.Holy saints preserve us!""Hold thy peace! thy words are air.Thou hast not got burghers by the ear, that know not a veal knuckle from their grandsire's ribs;but soldiers-men that have gone to look for their dear comrades, and found their bones picked as clean by the crows as these Idoubt have been by thee and thy mates.Men and women, saidst thou?
And prithee, when spake I a word of women's bones? Wouldst make a child suspect thee.Field of battle, comrade! Was not this house a field of battle half an hour agone? Drag him close to me, let me read his face: now then, what is this, thou knave?" and he thrust a small object suddenly in his face.
"Alas! I know not."
"Well, I would not swear neither: but it is too like the thumb bone of a man's hand; mates, my flesh it creeps.Churchyard! how know I this is not one?"And he now drew his sword out of the scabbard and began to rake the heap of earth and broken crockery and bones out on the floor.
The landlord assured him he but wasted his time."We poor innkeepers are sinners," said he; "we give short measure and baptize the wine: we are fain to do these things; the laws are so unjust to us; but we are not assassins.How could we afford to kill our customers? May Heaven's lightning strike me dead if there be any bones there but such as have been used for meat.'Tis the kitchen wench flings them here: I swear by God's holy mother, by holy Paul, by holy Dominic, and Denys my patron saint - ah!"Denys held out a bone under his eye in dead silence.It was a bone no man, however ignorant, however lying, could confound with those of sheep or oxen.The sight of it shut the lying lips, and palsied the heartless heart.
The landlord's hair rose visibly on his head like spikes, and his knees gave way as if his limbs had been struck from under him.But the archers dragged him fiercely up, and kept him erect under the torch, staring fascinated at the dead skull which, white as the living cheek opposed, but no whiter, glared back again at its murderer, whose pale lip now opened and opened, but could utter no sound.
"Ah!" said Denys solemnly, and trembling now with rage, "look on the sockets out of which thou hast picked the eyes, and let them blast thine eyes, that crows shall pick out ere this week shall end.Now, hold thou that while I search on.Hold it, I say, or here I rob the gallows - " and he threatened the quaking wretch with his naked sword, till with a groan he took the skull and held it, almost fainting.
Oh! that every murderer, and contriver of murder, could see him, sick, and staggering with terror, and with his hair on end, holding the cold skull, and feeling that his own head would soon be like it.And soon the heap was scattered, and alas! not one nor two, but many skulls were brought to light, the culprit moaning at each discovery.
Suddenly Denys uttered a strange cry of distress to come from so bold and hard a man; and held up to the torch a mass of human hair.It was long, glossy, and golden.A woman's beautiful hair.
At the sight of it the archers instinctively shook the craven wretch in their hands: and he whined.
"I have a little sister with hair just so fair and shining as this," gulped Denys."Jesu! if it should be hers! There quick, take my sword and dagger, and keep them from my hand, lest Istrike him dead and wrong the gibbet.And thou, poor innocent victim, on whose head this most lovely hair did grow, hear me swear this, on bended knee, never to leave this man till I see him broken to pieces on the wheel even for thy sake."He rose from his knee."Ay, had he as many lives as here be hairs, I'd have them all, by God," and he put the hair into his bosom.