Take care, La Falourdel, that he doth not knock at your door.’
One evening I was spinning on my wheel, there comes a knock at my door; I ask who it is.
They swear.
I open.
Two men enter.
A man in black and a handsome officer.
Of the black man nothing could be seen but his eyes, two coals of fire. All the rest was hat and cloak.
They say to me,—‘The Sainte-Marthe chamber.’—‘Tis my upper chamber, my lords, my cleanest.
They give me a crown.
I put the crown in my drawer, and I say:
‘This shall go to buy tripe at the slaughter-house of la Gloriette to-morrow.’ We go up stairs.
On arriving at the upper chamber, and while my back is turned, the black man disappears.
That dazed me a bit.
The officer, who was as handsome as a great lord, goes down stairs again with me. He goes out.
In about the time it takes to spin a quarter of a handful of flax, he returns with a beautiful young girl, a doll who would have shone like the sun had she been coiffed.
She had with her a goat; a big billy-goat, whether black or white, I no longer remember.
That set me to thinking.
The girl does not concern me, but the goat!
I love not those beasts, they have a beard and horns. They are so like a man.
And then, they smack of the witches, sabbath.
However, I say nothing.
I had the crown.
That is right, is it not, Monsieur Judge?
I show the captain and the wench to the upper chamber, and I leave them alone; that is to say, with the goat.
I go down and set to spinning again—I must inform you that my house has a ground floor and story above.
I know not why I fell to thinking of the surly monk whom the goat had put into my head again, and then the beautiful girl was rather strangely decked out.
All at once, I hear a cry upstairs, and something falls on the floor and the window opens.
I run to mine which is beneath it, and I behold a black mass pass before my eyes and fall into the water.
It was a phantom clad like a priest.
It was a moonlight night.
I saw him quite plainly.
He was swimming in the direction of the city. Then, all of a tremble, I call the watch.
The gentlemen of the police enter, and not knowing just at the first moment what the matter was, and being merry, they beat me.
I explain to them.
We go up stairs, and what do we find? my poor chamber all blood, the captain stretched out at full length with a dagger in his neck, the girl pretending to be dead, and the goat all in a fright.
‘Pretty work!’ I say, ‘I shall have to wash that floor for more than a fortnight.
It will have to be scraped; it will be a terrible job.’
They carried off the officer, poor young man, and the wench with her bosom all bare.
But wait, the worst is that on the next day, when I wanted to take the crown to buy tripe, I found a dead leaf in its place.”
The old woman ceased.
A murmur of horror ran through the audience.
“That phantom, that goat,—all smacks of magic,” said one of Gringoire’s neighbors.
“And that dry leaf!” added another.
“No doubt about it,” joined in a third, “she is a witch who has dealings with the surly monk, for the purpose of plundering officers.”
Gringoire himself was not disinclined to regard this as altogether alarming and probable.
“Goody Falourdel,” said the president majestically, “have you nothing more to communicate to the court?”
“No, monseigneur,” replied the crone, “except that the report has described my house as a hovel and stinking; which is an outrageous fashion of speaking.
The houses on the bridge are not imposing, because there are such multitudes of people; but, nevertheless, the butchers continue to dwell there, who are wealthy folk, and married to very proper and handsome women.”
The magistrate who had reminded Gringoire of a crocodile rose,—
“Silence!” said he. “I pray the gentlemen not to lose sight of the fact that a dagger was found on the person of the accused.