Book IV
I
How and for What Reason the Huntsman Was Jockeyed Away Into France
If you sharpen a razor too much you will notch the edge, and if you overbend the bow, at last ’twill break. The trick I played on my host with the hare was not enough for me, but I devised others to punish his insatiable greed. So did I teach the boarders to water the salted butter and so to get rid of the overplus salt; yea, and to grate the hard cheese like the Parmesans and moisten it with wine, all which things were to the miser like stabs in his heart. Nay, by my conjuring tricks at table I drew the water out of the wine, and made a song in which I compared the skinflint to a sow, from which there was no good to be looked for till the butcher had her dead upon the trestles. And so I myself furnished the reason why he paid me, and that well, with the trick ye shall now hear: for ’twas not my business to play such pranks in his house.
The two young nobles that were his boarders received a letter of exchange, and the command to go into France and there to learn the language, just at a time when our host’s German groom was on his travels and elsewhere, and to the Italian, said he, he dared not trust his horses to him to take into France, for he knew little of him and feared he might forget to come back, and so should he lose his horses: and therefore he begged of me to do him the greatest service in the world and to accompany those two noblemen with his horses as far as Paris, for in any case my suit could not be argued before four weeks were over; and he for his part would, if I would give him full powers, so faithfully further my interests as if I were there in person present. The young noblemen besought me also to the same end, and mine own desire to see France counselled me thereto: for now could I do this without special expense, and otherwise must spend those four weeks in idleness and spend money too. So I took to the road with my two noblemen, riding as their postilion; and on the way there happened to me nothing of note. But when we came to Paris and there put up at the house of our host’s correspondent, where also the young noblemen had their letter of exchange honoured, the very next day not only was I with the horses arrested, but a fellow that gave out that my host owed him a sum of money seized upon the beasts, with the leave of the commissary of the Quartier, and sold them. The Lord only doth know what I said to all this: but there I sat like a graven image and could not help myself, far less devise how I could return along a road so long and at that time so dangerous. The two noblemen showed me great sympathy, and therefore honourably gave me a larger gratification: nor would they have me leave them before I should find either a good master or a good opportunity to return to Germany. So they hired them a lodging, and for some days I stayed with them to wait upon one of them, which by reason of the long journey, as being unused thereto, was indisposed. And as I showed myself so polite to him he gave to me all the clothing he put off: for he would be clad in the newest mode. Their counsel was, I should stay a couple of years in Paris, and learn the language: for what I had to fetch from Cologne would not run away. So as I halted between two opinions and knew not what to do, the doctor which came every day to cure my sick nobleman heard me once play on the lute and sing a German ditty to it, which pleased him so that he offered me a good salary, together with board at his own table, if I would live with him and teach his two sons: for he knew better than I how my affairs stood and that I should not refuse a good master. Thus were we soon agreed, for, both the noblemen furthered the business all they could, and greatly recommended me: yet would I not engage myself save from one quarter of a year to the next.
The doctor spoke German as well as I did and Italian like his mother tongue: and therefore I was the more pleased to take service with him: and as I sat at my last meal with my noblemen, he was there too, and there all manner of sad fancies came into my head: for I thought of my newly wedded wife, the ensigncy promised me, and my treasure at Cologne, all which I let myself so easily be persuaded to leave: and as we came to speak of our former host I had a whim, and said I over the table, “Who knoweth whether, perhaps, our host have not of intention trepanned me hither that he may claim and keep my property at Cologne?” The doctor answered it might very well be so, especial if he deemed me a fellow of no family. “Nay,” said one of the nobles, “if our friend was sent here to the end he should stay here, ’twas done because he so plagued the host on account of his avarice.” “Nay,” said the sick man, “I believe there is another reason: for as I stood of late in my chamber I heard the host talk loud with his Italian man; so I listened to hear what ’twas
