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Brother Bonaccord of Outremer they call me in religion, but ill-accord I am in temper, by reason of the air of this accursed land, and a most tempestuous blood of my own. For why! I go to the Dominicans of Wanmouth, supplicating that I am new landed, and have no convent to my name and establishment in the Church. They take me in. Ha! they do that. Look now.
Bonaccord's the man, Brother Bonaccord of the Grey Brothers, hard by Botchergate." "Bonaccord for ever!" roared Falve. He blew a kiss to his wife and went off on his errand. The first thing the old lady did was to go to an oak chest which was in the room, and rummage there. This she opened upon the floor. "I belonged to a great lady once," said she, "though I don't look like it, my dear.
"Content you, my master," replied Matt-o'-the-Moor; "here is what you need." And he gave him a silver ring made of three thin wires curiously knotted in an endless plait. "The ring will serve the purpose," Prosper said. "Now, brother, at your disposition." Brother Bonaccord had no book, but seemed none the worse for that.
"Sit and eat, my lord, while you may," he said. So Prosper and Isoult sat upon the bench and made the most of it, and he, being a cheerful soul, talked and joked with Brother Bonaccord. Isoult never raised her eyes once, nor spoke a word; as for the numbed old soul by the fire; she kept her back resolutely on the room, muttered her charms and despair, and warmed her dry hands as before.
Prosper, forgetting Brother Bonaccord, quickened his horse to a gallop, and was soon up with the toiling lady. She stopped when she heard him coming, stood up to wait for him, quick-breathing and a little flushed, and never took her eyes off him. It was clearly a time for discretion: so much she signalled from her brown eyes, which were watchful, but by no means timid.
"Well, Isoult," he said cheerfully, "thou shalt not be hanged yet awhile, nor shall that worse thing befall thee. I will wed thee as soon as I may. At cock-crow we two will seek a priest." "Lord," she said, "a priest is here in this place." "Why, yes! Brother Bonaccord. Well," said Prosper, "let us go in."
The knocking continued till the door was opened. "Who are you, in the name of Jesus?" said the woman, trembling. "Jesus be my witness, I come in His name. I am Brother Bonaccord," said a man without. "Save you, father," the woman replied, "but you cannot come in this night. There's a naked maid in the room." Isoult's plight was pitiable. She could do absolutely nothing but stay where she was.
"Come, father;" and there came out Brother Bonaccord of Lucca, very solemn, vested in a frayed vestment. "Young sir," he said, wagging a portentous finger, "you are of the simple folk our good Father Francis loved. No harm should come of this. And I pray our Lady that I never may play a worse trick on a maid than this which I shall play now." "We have no ring," said Prosper to all this prelude.
She dared not so much as cry out. "If she is a maid, it is very well," said Brother Bonaccord; "but I am quite sure she is not." "Heyday, what is this?" cried Falve's mother, highly scandalized. "Listen to me, Dame Ursula," the friar went on with a wagging finger. "Your son came with gossip of a marriage he was to make with a certain Isoult " "'Tis so, 'tis so, indeed, father.
Your pardon, brother." "Not a bit, not a bit, brother again," replied the friar. "I admit the hindrance; and could tell you of the advantages if I had the mind. But as to the ladies, suffer me to predict that you will know more of them before you have done." "I think not," said Prosper. Brother Bonaccord began to laugh. "They will give you no peace yet awhile," said he.
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