there lacked nothing, but the coming of the young man, for her husband supped at one of her neighbours houses. When time came that my harness should be taken off and that I should rest myself, I was not so joyful of my liberty, as when the veil was taken from mine eyes, I should see all the abomination of this mischievous quean. When night was come and the sun gone down, behold the old bawd and the young man, who seemed to be but a child, by reason he had no beard, came to the door. Then the baker’s wife kissed him a thousand times and received him courteously, placed him down at the table: but he had scarce eaten the first morsel, when the good man (contrary to his wive’s expectation) returned home, for she thought he would not have come so soon: but Lord how she cursed him, praying God that he might break his neck at the first entry in. In the mean season, she caught her lover and thrust him into the bin where she bolted her flour, and dissembling the matter, finally came to her husband demanding why he came home so soon. I could not abide (quoth he) to see so great a mischief and wicked fact, which my neighbour’s wife committed, but I must run away: oh harlot as she is, how hath she dishonoured her husband, I swear by the goddess Ceres, that if I had [not] seen it with mine eyes, I would never I have believed it. His wife desirous to know the matter, desired him to tell what she had done: then he accorded to the request of his wife, and ignorant of the estate of his own house, declared the mischance of another. You shall understand (quoth he) that the wife of the fuller my companion, who seemed to me a wise and chaste woman, regarding her own honesty and profit of her house, was found this night with her knave. For while we went to wash our hands, he and she were together: who being troubled with our presence ran into a corner, and she thrust him into a mow made with twigs, appointed to lay on cloths to make them white with the smoke of fume and brimstone. Then she sat down with us at the table to colour the matter: in the mean season the young man covered in the mow, could not forbear sneezing, by reason of the smoke of the brimstone. The good man thinking it had been his wife that sneezed, cried, Christ help. But when he sneezed more, he suspected the matter, and willing to know who it was, rose from the table, and went to the mow, where he found a young man well-nigh dead with smoke. When he understood the whole matter, he was so inflamed with anger that he called for a sword to kill him, and undoubtedly he had killed him, had I not restrained his violent hands from his purpose, assuring him, that his enemy would die with the force of his brimstone, without the harm which he should do. Howbeit my words would not appease his fury, but as necessity required he took the young man well-nigh choked, and carried him out at the doors. In the mean season, I counselled his wife to absent herself at some of her Neighbours’ houses, till the choler of her husband was pacified, lest he should be moved against her, as he was against the young man. And so being weary of their supper, I forthwith returned home. When the baker had told his tale, his impudent wife began to curse and abhor the wife of the fuller, and generally all other wives, which abandon their bodies with any other then with their own husbands, breaking the faith and bond of marriage, whereby she said, they were worthy to be burned alive. But knowing her own guilty conscience and proper whoredom, lest her lover should be hurt lying in the bin, she willed her husband to go to bed, but he having eaten nothing, said that he would sup before he went to rest: whereby she was compelled to meager her eyes, to set such things on the table as she had prepared for her lover.
But I, considering the great mischief of this wicked quean, devised with myself how I might reveal the matter to my master, and by kicking away the cover of the bin (where like a snail the young man was couched) to make her whoredom apparent and known. At length I was aided by the providence of God, for there was an old man to whom the custody of us was committed, that drave me poor ass, and the other horses the same time to the water to drink; then had I good occasion ministered, to revenge the injury of my master, for as I passed by, I perceived the fingers of the young man upon the side of the bin, and lifting up my heels, I spurned off the flesh with the force of my hoofs, whereby he was compelled to cry out, and to throw down the bin on the ground, and so the whoredom of the baker’s wife was known and revealed. The Baker seeing this was not a little moved at the dishonesty of his wife, but he took the young man trembling for fear by the hand, and with cold and courteous words spake in this sort: Fear not my son, nor think that I am so barbarous or cruel a person, that I would stifle thee up with the smoke of sulphur as our neighbour accustometh, nor I will not punish thee according to the rigour of the law of Julia, which commandeth the adulterers should be put to death: No no, I will not execute my cruelty against so fair and comely a young man as you be, but we will divide our pleasure between us,
