The Jester

This was in accordance with custom. Six times had cap and bells descended from father to son: we see Peregrine as the seventh inheritor thereto, which, perchance, holds some sig...

AN’ you knew Greatoak Forest,—a vast place and well named by reason of its trees,—you might perchance have heard rumour of its recluse. Men spoke of him as a tall man, clad in a...

THE days passed leisurely up at the castle, naught of vast import to mark their flight. June was now in, the month of roses, with long sunny days, with nights of brief duration.

PEREGRINE, returning to consciousness, and unaware at the first of his surroundings, believed the snow to be an exceeding warm bed. This being so he lay still a while, very grat...

AND so it came to pass that Peregrine again saw the hall, entered thereto garbed once more in cap and bells. Candour, so he decreed, should be far from his lips, having in his m...

IN a valley, hill-surrounded on all sides, with but a narrow passage between them to the north and to the south, stood on a time a hamlet. It clustered for the most part round t...

FOR a time Peregrine was as one distraught. It may not be far beside the mark to term him mad. He saw himself in the past mocked by a woman; he saw himself now mocked by a man....

PEREGRINE found his interest fired by these matters that I have shown you. Menippus giving solid proof of his power, he doubted not that eventually at his will he could make goo...

TRULY I would have thought, and you would have thought, and we might well imagine Peregrine would have thought, he had had enough of castles and the dwellers therein. Yet there...

PIPPO the Page had struck up a friendship with Peregrine the Jester. It had been, I take it, a case of friendship at first sight. A merry youngster was Pippo, saucy after the ma...

ABBOT HILARY came riding through Thorn Wood when the morning was yet young. Matters ecclesiastic having taken him from Dieuporte three days previously, he was now returning to i...

EARLY the next morning Peregrine was again afoot. Coming at length from among the trees, he found himself on a hillside. Below him was a hamlet, a small cluster of some dozen or...

FOOL You cry in your heart, and perchance again, Fool! Yet for my part I find his folly in a manner to my liking. I had liefer see a man prodigal of his gifts, though he bestow...

THIS chapter may well be omitted by the incredulous. For my part I know not fully whether to see in it mere hypnotic influence, or some power more evil. Possibly both had dealin...

SPRING that year made battle royal with cold winds. Together they fought for the mastery. Yet where they gained in strength she gained in insistence. Driven away she yet returne...

THE sound of falling water caught on Peregrine’s ear as he came to the foot of the small ravine. It was but a faint musical tinkle, since rain had been scarce during the past we...

FOR the space of twelve months Peregrine abode at the Castle Syrtes. During the first six the life within it pleased him exceeding well. There was no lack of hospitality; his pr...

HIS Eminence John Felix Maria Cardinal Falconieri having arrived at the Minster with such dignity of retinue as befitted a Prince of the Church, was closetted with the Lady Abbess.

WITHIN a certain forest was a Castle, hidden tolerably deep within it. It lay not many miles from the Castle of Belisle, which stood upon an eminence. Though hidden from it by t...

TIME being the panacea for most ills as we are told, so we may well regard custom as the panacea for most distastes. It is certain it proved a panacea for Peregrine’s. Active di...

Exceeding sore in body, yet infinitely more sore in mind, he lay in a wood some two miles or so from the spot where the last blow had fallen upon him. Half fainting he had dragg...

LOYALTY holding Brigid silent concerning certain matters between her and the Lady Isabel, we, owing none, may well probe somewhat further, though doubtless the manner of the hap...

WHEN Peregrine left Dieuporte he struck straight through the valley between the wooded slopes of the hills. The autumn morning was very fair, as we have seen. This, added to his...

“An’ you are so minded, why not bide with me a time. Men term me a recluse, and so in a measure I am, finding little congenial in the majority of mankind. I should find no const...

MENIPPUS LACHESIS, sitting in his turret chamber, was poring over a parchment. You may be very sure this was not the name with which his parents had started him in life. It was...

HERE you will have seen two views of the same woman, one from the mountain summit, rarified, enfolded almost in the very air of Paradise; the other at the mountain base, to say...

E’ER we follow Peregrine in his further wanderings, it were well, methinks, to remain a brief space at Dieuporte. To leave on the instant the child committed by him to Abbot Hil...

THE Lady Abbess of Sangdieu, having heard vespers, was about to return to her own chamber, when word was brought her that one Mistress Brigid Carlisle was in the parlour seeking...

THE sun was not yet risen when Peregrine left the cottage. To the west, behind the hills, the sky glowed faintly luminous. Around him the valley lay yet in dusk, through which t...