Tales of the Feudal Period.

At Douay lived a burgess, esteemed for his prudence and his probity throughout the town. Unfortunately for him, he was not in very affluent circumstances, but he had a daughter, whose beauty and accomplishments made him forget the scantiness of his fortune.

On the banks of a river, at a small distance from the town, there stood a castle, at the foot of which there was a bridge across the river. The owner of this castle was a hump-backed object of deformity. Nature had exhausted her ingenuity in the formation of his whimsical figure. She had provided this baboon, in lieu of sense, with a monstrous large head, which was in a manner lost between two high shoulders, and covered with a prodigious quantity of thick hair. His neck was short, and his face so shockingly deformed as almost to terrify the beholder.

Such was the picture of the Castellan, who, notwithstanding all his ugliness, took it into his head to be enamoured of the burgess's beautiful daughter. He went still further. He even ventured to demand her in marriage, and, as he was the richest man in the district (for he had employed his whole life in amassing wealth), the poor girl was delivered up to him. But this acquisition did not add to his happiness. Full of jealousy, from a consciousness of his personal defects, he had no rest or tranquility of mind either by day page 4 or night. He was perpetually going backward and forward, prying and watching in every corner, and never suffering any one to come within the doors, except such as brought something that was wanted in the house. One of the Christmas holidays, as he was thus standing sentry at his gate, he was accosted by three hunch-backed minstrels. These men had made up a party together on purpose to amuse themselves at the expense of their rich brother in deformity. They saluted him in that quality, and demanded brotherly entertainment at the same time, to demonstrate the affinity, each displaying his hump. This pleasantry, which one would suppose could not have been very acceptable to the lord of the castle, was nevertheless extremely well received. He conducted the minstrels to his kitchen, served them with fowl, peas, and bacon, and even gave them each at parting a piece of money. But when they were at the gate he called out to them, "Observe this house attentively, and take care you never think of setting foot in it again, for if ever I catch you here, you shall take your last draught at the bottom of that river. Our musicians laughed at this threat of the Castellan, and took the road towards the town, singing, dancing, and skipping in a ridiculous manner to show their contempt of him. He on his part, without bestowing the least attention on them, went out and took his walk towards the country. His lady, who saw him cross the bridge, and who had heard the minstrels, called them to her, intending to amuse herself for a few minutes by hearing them play and sing. They returned into the house, when the doors were shut, and the musicians began to play some of their gayest and most approved airs for the entertainment of the lady. She had just entered into the spirit of this diversion when, in a sudden, the husband's knock was heard at the door. The fiddlers gave themselves up for lost, and the wife was seized with the utmost consternation. Indeed, all four had equal cause for their terror. The lady, in this dilemma, happily discovered, three empty trunks upon a bedstead. She put a fiddler in each, shut the covers, and went to open the door for her husband. He had come only to pry into his wife's concerns, according to custom, so after a short stay he went out again, not, as any one may conjecture, to the great dissatisfaction of the lady. She instantly ran to the trunks, in order to free her prisoners; for the night approached, and her husband could not be long absent. But conceive her alarm when she found them all three suffocated; she almost wished herself in the same situation. However, she prudently considered that all the lamentation in the world Would be too late to remedy the evil. The object now was to get rid of the dead bodies, and there was not a moment to be lost in attempting it. She ran to the door, and seeing a countryman pass: "Friend!" she cried, "have you any inclination to be rich?"—"To be sure, I have, lady. Try me, and see whether I have any objection."—"Well, all I ask in return is a service that you can render me in a moment, and I promise you thirty well told livers, but you must take a solemn oath to be secret." The countryman, tempted by the offer of so large a sum, entered into all the obligations she required. The lady of the castle then led the countryman into her apartment, and opening one page 5 of the trunks, told him all she required of him to do was to take the dead body he saw there and to throw it into the river. He asked her for a sack, put the carcase into it, and going clown pitched it from the bridge. Then returned, out of breath, for his payment. "I wish nothing more than to satisfy you," said the lady, "but you will allow that the bargain we made should be fulfilled on both sides. You agreed with me to rid me of the dead body, but here it is again. Look at it yourself." At the same time she showed him the second trunk, which held another of the hunchbacks. The Clown was confounded at the sight. "What, the devil! Has he come back again? I thought I had pitched him over completely. It is assuredly a sorcerer. But by all that's good I'll go through with it. He shall have another leap into the water." He instantly stuffed the second carcase into the sack, and went to throw it, as he did the other, into the river, taking care to put his head undermost, and to see that he fell to the bottom. In the meantime the lady changed the position of the trunks, so that the third, which was full, stood in the situation of the first. When the countryman entered she took him by the hand, and, conducting him towards the remaining carcase, said "You were certainly right, my friend, this must have been a sorcerer, and there never was his equal. For, do but observe, there he is again." The clown ground his teeth with rage. "What, then, by all the devils in hell am I to be all day carrying this wretched hunchback? The villian is determined not to die; but we shall see how that will be." He raised the body then with the most dreadful imprecations, and after tying a large stone about his neck, threw him into the middle of the stream, threatening violently, if he should escape a third time, to cudgel him to death.

The first thing that presented itself to him, oil his return, was the master of the house, who was coming home. At the sight the clown was almost beside himself.—"What, are you there again? And is it impossible to get rid of you? Come, I see that I must make away with you at once." He immediately rushes upon the Castellan and knocks out his brains; and in order the more effectually to prevent his return, he throws him into the river tied up in a sack. I venture a wager you have not seen him again this last time, said the clodpole to the lady when he returned to her chamber. She answered that she had not. Yet you were not far from it replied he, for the sorcerer got as far as the door. But I took care of him. You may make yourself easy, madam. I'll answer for it, you'll not be troubled with him again.