bread and butter and a draught of beer. But I made as though I belonged not to him, and said I would eat a snack in the inn and then call for him, that we might ere the day was spent come somewhat further on our way together. And to the inn I went, yet more to espy what I could fetch away that night than to appease mine hunger, and had also the luck on the way to find a peasant plastering up of his oven, in which he had great loaves of rye-bread, that should sit there and bake for four-and-twenty hours. With the innkeeper I did little business: for now I knew where bread was to be had: yet bought a few loaves of white bread for our captain, and when I came to the parsonage to warn my comrade to go, he had already had his fill, and had told the priest I was a painter and was minded to journey to Holland, there to perfect my art. So the good man bade me welcome and begged me to go into the church with him, for he would show me some pieces there that needed repair. And not to spoil the play, I must follow. So he took me through the kitchen, and as he opened the lock in the strong oaken door that led to the churchyard,
O mirum! there I saw that the black heaven above was dark with lutes, flutes, and fiddles, meaning the hams, smoked sausages, and sides of bacon that hung in the chimney; at which I looked with content, for it seemed as if they smiled at me, and I wished, but in vain, to have them for my comrades in the wood: yet they were so obstinate as to hang where they were. Then pondered I upon the means how I could couple them with the said oven full of bread, yet could not easily devise such, for, as aforesaid, the parson’s yard was walled round and all windows sufficiently guarded with iron bars. Furthermore there lay two monstrous great dogs in the courtyard which, as I feared, would of a surety not sleep by night if any would steal that whereon ’twas the reward of their faithful guardianship to feed by day. So now when we came into the church and talked of the pictures, and the priest would hire me to mend this and that, and I sought for excuses and pleaded my journey, says the sacristan or bellringer, “Fellow,” says he, “I take thee rather for a runaway soldier than a painter.” To such rough talk I was no longer used, yet must put up with it: still I shook my head a little and answered him, “Fellow, give me but a brush and colours, and in a wink I will have thee painted for the fool thou art.” Whereat the priest laughed, yet said to us both, ’twas not fitting to wrangle in so holy a place: with that I perceived he believed us both, both me and my student; so he gave us yet another draught and let us go. But my heart I left behind among the smoked sausages.
Before nightfall we came to our companions, where I took my clothes and arms again, told the captain my story, and chose out six stout fellows to bring the bread home. At midnight we came to the village and took the bread out of the oven: for we had a man among us that could charm dogs; and when we were to pass by the parsonage, I found it not in my heart to go further without bacon. In a word, I stood still and considered deeply whether ’twere not possible to come into the priest’s kitchen, yet could find no other way but the chimney, which for this turn must be my door. The bread and our arms we took into the churchyard and into the bonehouse, and fetched a ladder and rope from a shed close by. Now I could go up and down chimneys as well as any chimney-sweep (for that I had learned in my youth in the hollow trees), so on to the roof I climbed with one other, which roof was covered with a double ceiling and a hollow between, and therefore convenient for my purpose. So I twisted my long hair into a bunch on my head, and lowered myself down with an end of the rope to my beloved bacon, and fastened one ham after another and one flitch after another to the rope which my comrade on the roof most regularly hauled up and gave to the others to carry to the bonehouse. But alack and well-a-day! Even as I shut my shop and would out again a rafter broke under me, and poor Simplicissimus tumbled down and the miserable huntsman found himself caught as in a mousetrap: ’tis true, my comrades on the roof let down the rope to draw me up: but it broke before they could lift me from the ground. And, “Now huntsman,” thought I, “thou must abide a hunt in which thy hide will be as torn as was Actaeon’s,” for the priest was awakened by my fall and bade his cook forthwith to kindle a light: who came in her nightdress into the kitchen with her gown hanging on her shoulders and stood so near me that she almost touched me: then she took up an ember, held the light to it, and began to blow: yet I blew harder, which so affrighted the good creature that she let both fire and candle fall and ran to her master. So I gained time to consider by what means I could help myself out: yet found I none.
Now my comrades gave me to understand through the chimney they would break the house open and have me forth: that would I not have, but bade them to look to their
