The Geste of Duke Jocelyn by Farnol, Jeffery, 1878-1952

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The Geste Of Duke Jocelyn Bt Little, Bbown, And Company. Illustrations Prelude

Gill: Myself: Gill: Gill: Myself:

So spake he; then, uprising from his knees,
Strode blithe away and vanished 'mid the trees.
Whereat Sir Pertinax shook doleful head:
"There go our good gold pieces, lord!" he said.
"Would that yon rogue swung high upon a tree,
And in my poke our gold again might be.
Full much I marvel, lord, and fain would know
Wherefore and why unhanged didst let him go?"Then answered the Duke singing on this wise:"Good Pertinax, if on a tree
Yon rogue were swinging high
A deader rogue no man could see--
'He's but a rogue!' says you to me,
'But a living rogue!' says I."And since he now alive doth go
More honest he may die,
Yon rogue an honest man may grow,
If we but give him time, I trow,
Says I to you, says I."At this, Sir Pertinax growled in his beard--

My daughter GILLIAN interrupteth:

GILL: A beard? O father--beard will never do!
No proper knight a beard ever grew.'
No knight could really romantic be
Who wore a beard! So, father, to please me,
No beard; they are, I think, such scrubby things--MYSELF: Yet they are worn, sometimes, by poets and kings.GILL: But your knight--MYSELF: Oh, all right,
My Gill, from your disparagement to save him,
I, like a barber, will proceed to shave him.Sir Pertinax, then, stroked his smooth-shaved chin,
And thus to curse he softly did begin,
"Par Dex, my lord--"

My daughter GILLIAN interposeth:

GILL: Your knight, dear father, seems to love to curse.MYSELF: He does. A difficult matter, child, in verse--GILL: Of verse I feel a little tired--MYSELF: Why, if you think a change desired,
A change we'll have, for, truth to tell,
This rhyming bothers me as well.
So here awhile we'll sink to prose.
Now, are you ready? Then here goes!

"Par Dex, my lord!" growled Sir Pertinax. "A malison on't, says I, saving thy lordly grace, yet a rogue is a rogue and, being rogue, should die right roguishly as is the custom and the law. For if, messire, if--per De and by Our Sweet Lady of Shene Chapel within the Wood, if, I say, in thy new and sudden-put-on attitude o' folly, thou wilt save alive all rogues soever, then by Saint Cuthbert his curse, by sweet Saint Benedict his blessed bones, by--"

"Hold now, Pertinax," said the Duke, slipping his lute into leathern bag and slinging it behind wide shoulders, "list ye, Sir Knight of Shene, and mark this, to wit: If a rogue in roguery die then rogue is he forsooth; but, mark this again, if a rogue be spared his life he may perchance and peradventure forswear, that is, eschew or, vulgarly speaking, turn from his roguish ways, and die as honest as I, aye, or even--thou!"

Here Sir Pertinax snorted as they strode on together, yet in a little they turned aside from the hot and dusty road and journeyed on beneath the trees that grew thereby.

"By all the fiends, my lord, and speaking vulgarly in turn, this belly o' mine lacketh, these my bowels do yearn consumedly unto messes savoury and cates succulent--"

Whereat the Duke, smiling merry-eyed, chanted roguishly: