Sir Nip and Sir Tuck

I

SIR PERCY THE GAY rode down from his castle with his Uncle Gregory, who was no uncle by blood, but merely by adoption. The time was the nearer edge of a summer twilight say in the year 1202; the way steep and narrow, inconvenient to ascend if the Baron were disinclined to receive callers. Uncle Gregory, his gown hiked up for convenience, rode a mule. A wandering monk, he had been taken into the castle by Percy’s father, now purging in Purgatory, because he knew how to read and write; the need was infrequent, but the shrewd Baron had liked to know just what he was signing when he made his mark. So the monk had stayed on, becoming more clerk than cleric, and it partly describes him that little Percy, arriving later, had begun by calling him ‘Unky.’

‘Save that we shall find good fare and late gossip at the Abbey,’ Uncle Gregory was saying, ‘this methinks were a bootless errand. Anselm might let you look at the Tooth, which were great favor. Or peradventure touch holy relic with cautious finger, which were greater yet. But never will he permit it that you bear Tooth from Abbey, risking the displeasure of Egbert Martyr and mayhap loss of the Tooth.’

‘I am careless about much, God wot,’ said Sir Percy, ‘but I would not be careless about that. As for Egbert Martyr — did I not tell you, Uncle Gregory, that in a dream I bore the Tooth with me to Tor Castle and featly unhorsed Hubert? ’T was the Martyr suggested it.’

‘Or, more like, Satan,’ said Uncle Gregory. ‘Dreams are oft of the Devil, tempting the dreamer to commit sin.’

He set his mule to a faster pace to keep up with the Baron, for they were now down the hill and on the King’s Road, with the free town of Wetmouth where road reached sea, and Wetmere Abbey about two leagues away if they took the first turn to the right. Where the sun came through the trees the shadows were beginning to lengthen, and once a lone wolf crossed the road in front of them. But neither was interested in a lone wolf crossing a road. The young Baron had his own thoughts for company; his optimism rather amused Gregory, who told himself that if Sir Percy the Gay thought Abbot Anselm would lend him the Abbey’s best relic to carry in a tournament, he, in plain speech, fooled himself. One took no such liberties with the Tooth.

The monks of Whitemarsh, to be sure, made light of the Tooth, even going so far, though warily, as to cast some doubt on Egbert Martyr himself; but there was no doubt to be cast on the popularity of his alleged surviving molar with pilgrims. It made Holy Tooth Abbey, as Wetmere was commonly called, and excited sinful, unbrotherly envy, as well as captious criticism, at Whitemarsh.

II

The setting sun looked into the refectory of Holy Tooth through high arched windows, and along the low table the shadow of one brother fell on the next. A monk in the gallery read aloud from an edifying book. The Abbey dogs drowsed under the table, well fed, but half awake for any morsel that might fall from above. A stricter abbot than Father Anselm would have insisted that the brotherhood listen to the edifying book; one less strict might have done away with the reader and perhaps substituted a musician.

At the high table Father Anselm was much interested in Percy’s dream and intelligently curious about the appearance of Egbert Martyr. But he balked at the idea of making the dream a reality.

‘I would take as good care of it,’ said Percy, ‘as it were one of mine own.’

Abbot Anselm, not neglecting the needs of the inner abbot, said he did not doubt that. Nevertheless it was of ancient and unbroken custom that the Tooth remained in its reliquary, visible to none but himself, and that only at long intervals for necessary dusting. For that matter (said the Abbot with a twinkle) young knights often lost some of their own teeth at tournaments. Being, in a corporeal sense, all that was now left of Egbert (said the Abbot more seriously), his Tooth must be regarded as Egbert in toto, the whole Egbert, who by such usage would be committed willy-nilly to jousting in tournament himself. One saw Egbert Martyr ahorse, couching his spear. The idea shocked Anselm, and would, if it became known, scandalize Christendom. Tournaments were of the Devil, endangering souls as well as bodies. The Church frowned on them. If the Abbot (as he admitted when pressed) intended to be at Tor Castle himself, it was only so that he could be there and frown. Like Uncle Gregory, he had known Percy from the cradle. He was almost avuncular.

‘But it would n’t become known to all Christendom,’ said Percy. ‘And if nothing of me were there but one tooth, it would n’t be me’

‘We are not talking about your tooth,’ said the Abbot, carving his guests another helping of roast duck, flavored with onion and cinnamon, ‘but about Egbert Martyr’s.’

Uncle Gregory yawned. He had been steadily comforting himself with the Abbey’s spiced beer, none better anywhere, and had rather lost interest in the conversation. Percy the Gay devoted himself to his second helping.

‘Tooth or no Tooth,’ he said presently, trying another tack, ‘I have made me a vow, if that I unhorse Hubert, to donate his ransom for mount, armor, and person to Holy Tooth. And exact also that he make pilgrimage.’

‘A most excellent vow,’ said the Abbot. ‘He can stand for a round ransom, and a pilgrimage will do him no harm.’

‘The out about it,’ said Percy, speaking as one more interested in the Abbey than in himself, ‘is that Hubert may unhorse me. All the world knows that he is a stout man of his hands.’

Abbot Anselm nodded understandingly. He had frowned on so many tournaments that he was well up in the qualifications of jousters.

‘Betwixt the two of you,’ said he, ‘it may well be a gentle encounter of Sir Nip and Sir Tuck.’

‘Yet if I carried the Tooth,’ said Percy, ‘it would peradventure make all the difference.’

The Abbot said nothing, finishing his duck and sitting back in his abbatial chair while a brother brought in a dessert of pickled olives. He relapsed into reverie, letting Percy talk on and absently helping himself to an olive. The sun went on down and the brotherhood at the low table began to get up. A tall candle was lighted at the high table. Uncle Gregory openly drowsed where he sat.

Abbot Anselm had great faith in the Tooth. But sometimes it worked, and sometimes — so he could not help thinking, though he would not have admitted it — it did n’t. Yet in this case, other things being equal, he thought that it would. The only other thing (considered the Abbot) that might be unequal was what Egbert Martyr would think of it. There was Percy’s dream; but the good Abbot had once dreamt about Egbert Martyr himself, and the two Egberts seemed not the same Egbert, Percy’s being a tall, thin martyr and Anselm’s a short, stout one. Yet the Devil, assuming him to have set Percy ad reaming in this fashion, would for certain have known what Egbert Martyr looked like. Dreams sometimes meant something; but more often they did n’t. Did Egbert Martyr, being incorporeal and having these several hundred years had no use for his tooth, care a rap where it was now or what anybody did with it? It seemed unlikely (reflected the Abbot), for, although something of Egbert undoubtedly remained in the Tooth, it stood to reason that nothing of the Tooth remained in the Martyr. . . . Clocks had recently been invented, ingenious but costly things that told the time of day much better than a sundial. Whitemarsh had one; and Sir Hubert’s ransom, to say nothing of his gift if he came pilgrim, would more than buy one for Wetmere. It was hardly to be doubted (said the Abbot to himself) that it would pleasure Egbert in Heaven to know that Wetmere Abbey had a clock as good, if not better, than Whitemarsh.

‘How was it your intent, my son,’ asked the Abbot, ‘to convey Tooth to Tor?’

‘I have a napkin of fine green silk, sweetly perfumed,’ said Sir Percy earnestly. ‘Methought to wrap the Tooth in the napkin and carry it at my girdle, waking and sleeping. I would sleep in my girdle.’

III

Percy the Gay rode with his lady mother, his adopted uncle, his bright young squire, a retinue of men at arms and varlets, six stout sumpter mules more or less laden with tents, jousting equipment, and other baggage, his high horse for war or tournament, and a good cow to supply the baronial table with milk. Tor was hospitable; but, with so many noble guests coming to his castle at once, the best he could do for them was to provide a place to camp out. Sir Percy rode without armor, for, with so many travelers ahorse and afoot, there was no danger of robbers when the road wended through the wild woods. Bareheaded, he offered the sun a lean and cheerful countenance and a poll of sandy hair close-cropped for comfort when he put on his helmet. Brown as a nut was Percy the Gay, and as little bewhiskered; wide of shoulder in his well-worn traveling jerkin, and narrow at the waist where it was encircled by a leather girdle from which depended his sword, dagger, and pouch. This had need to be large, for it was all the pockets he had; and in it, among other things, was Egbert. Martyr’s Tooth, reverently wrapped in a green silk napkin sweetly perfumed.

The Dowager Baroness, a short, stout lady somewhat weary of riding horseback, broke a long silence.

‘God wot, my Percy,’ quoth she, ‘we put ourselves to a deal of discomfort to attend these tournaments.’

‘They add spice to life, good Mother,’ said Percy, ‘and in time of peace keep a man fit for deeds of valor in time of war.’

‘If none were kept fit,’ said the Baroness, ‘methink it would come to the same thing. Howsomever, I can get me some spices.’

To this seemingly irrelevant remark her son said nothing, recognizing its relevance. Trade followed the tournaments; merchants set up their stalls and enticed custom with prices somewhat less than ruled in the towns. Spices were a necessary and expensive item in castle-keeping, and his mother a thrifty dowager. But Sir Percy rode dreaming, for with the Tooth in his pouch he considered Hubert the Fair as good as unhorsed. He basked, looking imaginatively forward to the dance in hall afterward, in the smiles of the demoiselle Elinor, youngest daughter of the Count of Tor; and took even more pleasure in the anticipated spectacle of Sir Hubert (if able to be present) frowning and biting his nails.

Such basking, as Percy knew, was no more than a sun bath. The haughty count ha d ducal ambit ions for his engaging youngest; nor was Elinor a demoiselle who would have eloped with anybody before consulting her father. But Hubert irked Percy. He was too often around where he wasn’t wanted; and, what was perhaps as trying, they were both poets. As Father Anselm might have said, Sir Nip and Sir Tuck. It was, for that matter, a remark of Percy’s, critical of a lay Hubert had composed and sung in hall at their last meeting, strumming (as Sir Percy put it) his silly accompaniment on his silly lute, that had invited the coming gentle passage at arms.

‘Pepper,’ said the Baroness. ‘ Ginger. Sage. Thyme. Cinnamon. Bay. Cloves. Capers. Citron. Allspice. Nutmeg.’

It had rained in the night, and the road was muddy, though the day fair. But tournament was in the air; and who that walked bothered about wet feet? Even the poor commons, making way for the Baron’s cavalcade, scuttled good-naturedly to the sides of the road. Beggars grinned as they whined for alms. The troupe overtook a hermit, fat with long sitting in front of his cave, and Sir Percy found place for the holy man on a mule, a good deed that would no doubt be considered when Saint Peter summed up his account. The sun was still an hour high as they approached Tor Castle, hearing from afar off the industry of hammer on nail where carpenters from the nearest town were finishing a wooden gallery and a chin-high fence, the gallery for the nobility to sit in, and the fence, or barrier, for the poor commons to look over.

It was a mad meadow as the cavalcade rode into it, pausing to ask one of the Count’s men where the Baron might pitch his tents. They rode slowly, as needs must where so many were arriving at once, ahorse or afoot, and trying to get settled for the night. Banners fluttered where nobles were encamped; and quarrels engaged the Count’s men, none too gentle in settling them, where two or more of the poor commons had picked the same place to sleep on the grass. Traders had already set up their stalls. A stout fellow, leather-aproned at a canvas booth, was selling sausages. He boiled them in a copper kettle, laid them one at a time between crusts of bread, plastered them with pungent spices, folded them in between the crusts, and offered them fora penny. Even in that hubbub the fellow made himself audible. ‘The doggies! The doggies!’ he screamed at intervals. ‘Pause ye here, gentles or commons, for a rare treat, and all hot from the kettle. A supper for a penny.’

Percy the Gay bought one for himself, and one apiece for his mother, Uncle Gregory, Aimery his squire, and the holy hermit. He ate it in saddle while his varlets planted his banner and began pitching his tents.

IV

Percy the Gay was up with the sun, not that he cared so much for sunrise, but because such was the habit of his time. He had slept in his girdle, his pouch securely and uncomfortably attached to him; and he looked to make sure the Tooth was still there before he opened his tent and looked out at the weather. A new day was beginning. Shadows were long, the eastern sky rosy, and a thousand birds, more or less, piping and chirping in a near-by grove. Some of the surrounding tents were open, but in most the nobility was not yet quite awake. Varlets went here and there with water from the Count’s spring, and other varlets were making fires for cooking breakfasts. His own varlets were stirring, for two pails of water for his morning bath stood by the tent.

Sir Percy exchanged greeting with a knight who was similarly looking out of the next tent. Neither of them had on their nightgowns, for such garments were not yet worn.

‘The day promises fair for jousting, gentle sir,’said the neighbor.

‘Methink it may be overwarm, fair knight,’ said Sir Percy. ‘A hot sun on your headpiece bakes the head like loaf in oven.’

‘Ever try a wet rag?’ asked the knight. ‘Well wetted and packed tight in the helmet?’

‘Nay,’ said Percy, ‘but I will this day. And gramercy of your goodness, fair sir, for the timely suggestion.’

‘You put the rag,’ said the knight, ‘well back in the helmet. Else the water will trickle down in your eyes.’

They chatted a few minutes, and Sir Percy turned back into his tent, where Aimery was now up and Dom Gregory still asleep. Sir Percy sat down on his camp bed and waited for Aimery to bring in the pails of water.

Quoth the Baron, ‘The early bird, young Aimery, catches the bright idea.’ He explained about the wet rag, and Aimery was enthusiastic. The difficulty, so far from home, was to find the rag; but that, they decided, could be got over by tearing up one of the Baron’s shirts.

‘There are several likely-seeming spice merchants,’ said the Baroness a little later as they breakfasted in her tent. ‘Me took note of them yestereve. And I do hope, Percy, that you will be careful of yourself — and not hurt Sir Hubert. He is such a nice dancer. If we mothers had our way, I’m sure there would soon be an end of these foolish and dangerous joust ings.’

‘You will have your way,’ said Dom Gregory, ‘sooner or later. Women always do.’

‘Me should hope so,’ said the Baroness. ‘But the jongleur is entertaining. And one does meet one’s friends.’

Sir Percy ate light and left them at talk. He went back to his tent and said his prayers, hoping it would be overlooked above that he had forgotten them when he got up. As Abbot Anselm would have reminded him, tournaments interfered sadly with the spiritual life, which was why Satan invented them. He was just off his knees when Aimery came in with a thin, long-nosed fellow in faded yellow with a lute over his shoulder, who grinned at the Baron, yet managed a bow so servile that it could only have been made by an acrobat. Sitting on his camp bed, the Baron condescended to converse with him while Aimery began armoring his master with a chain-mail stocking. It rather shocked the young squire to see Sir Percy make so free in talk with a common jongleur.

‘You have been pursuivant to me before, Master Peter,’ said Percy, ‘so you will do your devoir with little advice. Sir Hubert, it were bootless to deny, is a stout man of his hands and has unhorsed many a gallant and hopeful knight. ’T is not only true, but will show the more valor in me when I unhorse him.’

‘As will no doubt befall,’ said the jongleur, making another of his acrobatic courtesies.

‘As will hap for certain,’ said Sir Percy, ‘and that with much ease. But for other knightly accomplishment —’

‘He is not so hot, my lord,’ said Master Peter.

‘He is barely warm,’ said the Baron. ‘He sings like a sick cat, fingers the strings of his lute like a monkey, and when he dances with a fair dame in hall may the saints preserve toes.’

Aimery, having got on the chainmail stockings, found and handed Master Peter his tabard, a white smock with the Baron’s device — a bear upside down — done in brown and green. The pursuivant went out with the garment over his arm. Presently they heard him trying the strings of his lute, and the sound kept harmonious company with the jingling of little bells on the harness of the Baron’s war horse. Master Peter and the man at arms holding the horse fell to talking tournament.

Aimery finished accoutring Percy, who never once let go of his pouch and looked in to make sure of the Tooth before he fastened it to a steel girdle over his hauberk. Burdened as he was with metal, it showed him a good and true knight that he could vault into his saddle without assistance. He clinked all over as he came down in it.

Thus sitting, he was a shining object. His hauberk had been his father’s and seen hard service; but ring by ring the lad Aimery had lovingly polished it till there was not a speck of rust on him. The meadow had blossomed with similar figures, some mounting their high horses and others starting off for the lists. Everybody moved in that direction, ladies on their palfreys, knights on horseback who were not going to joust, the nobility ahorse and the poor commons afoot. The holy hermit was there already with his double chin on the barrier. Percy the Gay rode slowly, Master Peter ahead in his tabard and strumming his lute, Aimery behind leading a baggage animal laden with lances, shields, Sir Percy’s helmet, and a leather bottle of fresh cold water from the spring in case the rag in the helmet needed more wetting. All the jousters walked their high horses, some fully equipped with lance, shield, and helmet, but the more experienced without. The spectators hurried, gentles to the gallery, now bedight with banners, and the poor commons to the barrier. Just over that fence and convenient to the lists for first aid, a barber-surgeon and his assistants were arranging their apparatus, and a priest conned his breviary in case last aid should be necessary.

As they approached the lists the jousters fell in line two by two, and so entered. But now the high horses stepped faster, and each knight showed his best horsemanship for the applause of all and the love of his lady. The poor commons, jamming the holy hermit against the barrier, expressed vulgar appreciation with rude noise. The holy hermit, remembering the mule and the meal, cheered for Sir Percy. In the gallery the nobility, higher clergy, and a few wealthy burghers with their families (there by shrewd invitation of the Count) contributed a politer roar. The gentler sex pelted the procession with flowers.

Percy the Gay, seeing the demoiselle Elinor leaning from the Count’s box, put his high horse on hind legs. The maid threw him roses and fluttered her kerchief. The knight started to wave his mailed fist, but felt the gesture inadequate. There is nothing of endearment about a mailed fist. Holding his high horse on hind legs with one hand, he fumbled hastily in his pouch. There was no time to lose, for he was holding up the procession as well as his horse. He found something to flutter, and shoved it back in his pouch as he let his high horse down on all fours. It was a green silk napkin, and its flutter sweetly perfumed the air.

V

‘There he is, all ye that love to see doughty deed!’ shouted Master Peter, jumping up and down in his tabard and twanging his lute at each jump. ‘Sir Percy the Gay, the modestest knight in all Christendom, come this day to unhorse that uncouth but heretofore unbeaten champion Hubert the Fair!’

‘Look ye all, gentles and commons,’ yelled Sir Hubert’s pursuivant at the other end of the lists. ‘Here be Sir Hubert the Fair, the bravest and most debonnaire knight in the world, come this day to make that upstart jouster Percy the Gay wish he had never been born.’

Nobody paid them much attention, but they were part of the show and would have been missed if omitted.

Percy the Gay sat on his high horse. Through the horizontal slit in his headpiece he could see Hubert the Fair sitting on his high horse at the other end of the lists. Both were statues, though at regular intervals a drop of spring water trickled coldly down one statue’s back. It had been so far an interesting but not remarkable tournament; no exceptional deeds of valor had been done and no jouster irreparably injured. Some of the elder knights, long past jousting, grumbled to each other that tournaments were not what they used to be. Knighthood (they grumbled) had lost its guts. One might have expected it (they said), when women were allowed to be present. They recalled, though none was elderly enough to have been there, the classic gentle passage at arms between Sir Oliver the Hard and Sir Roland the Quick in which those heroes, having unhorsed each the other, drew sword and debated on foot; brake swords and debated with axe; brake axes debating each the other his harness off him; and courteously ended, to the glory of knighthood and the admiration of all beholders, by strangling each the other with bare hands. A tournament nowadays (said the elder knights) was hardly more than a pretty spectacle for the ladies. The holy hermit remarked to his elbow neighbor, a beggar in tattered fustian, that one tournament was very much like another.

‘Hubert the Fair thinks he can dance,’ shouted Master Peter, ‘and so does a trained bear. Hubert the Fair should have a ring in his nose.’

‘The crow and the ass think they can sing,’ shouted Sir Hubert’s pursuivant. ‘ So does Percy the Gay think he can joust.’

But everybody there knew, gentles and commons, that both these knights were stout champions, and the betting was even. Abbot Anselm, who had come into the gallery too late to frown on the procession, was of two minds at once. One considered the encounter as good as over, but the other remembered that the Tooth did not always work. Elinor preferred Percy to Hubert, and was anxious but hopeful.

The two knights stayed statuesque, their eyes on each other and their ears keen for the trumpet that would signal the onset. The Count’s herald lifted the instrument; and as those nearest saw him filling his lungs a hush spread quickly over the whole assembly. Lords and ladies leaned forward on their cushioned seats, and the pressure of the poor commons behind the holy hermit flattened his round belly more than ever against the barrier. But the holy hermit had forgotten his round belly. Master Peter turned a somersault, and Sir Hubert’s pursuivant, who lacked that accomplishment, sat down on the grass.

The herald blew.

At that sound, almost before anybody heard it, Percy the Gay and Hubert the Fair couched lance, swung shield, bent double, and dug spur. Two high horses never moved faster. They met at equal distance from where they started. Each lance struck true in the centre of the opposing shield, bending with the impact, and both high horses stood on their hind legs and just missed going over backward. But the lances shivered and the high horses came down on all fours. The two champions saluted each other courteously with what was left of their lances, turned their steeds, and trotted back to opposite ends of the lists. Even the oldest knight had to admit that it had been a well-ridden course.

But Sir Percy was puzzled. He had expected to unhorse Sir Hubert, and Sir Hubert had very nearly done it to him. His shield was cracked; his squire handed him up another and a fresh lance. Once more the two knights sat motionless and a hush spread over the gathering as the herald lifted his trumpet. The holy hermit, remembering the mule and the meal, prayed for Sir Percy. The lances again shivered and the knights were still in their saddles.

The only explanation that occurred to Percy the Gay, trotting back to the starting point, was that Egbert Martyr’s Tooth helped those who helped themselves.

Inside his helmet he set his own teeth. He thought quickly and hard. There was his old lance, which had survived earlier tournaments but seen such service he had doubted it would hold good for another. He was not sure that Aimery had brought it along, and shouted the question through his helmet. Aimery made him repeat it and appeared uncertain, but he obediently looked. Yes, he had brought that old lance; he had n’t intended to, but there it was. Sir Percy made gestures indicating that he wanted it immediately, and the squire gave it him with reluctance.

The herald blew his trumpet, and eight hoofs tore the green turf.

But this time Percy the Gay invited Egbert Martyr’s assistance by helping himself. He almost unhorsed himself sidewise. It was a risky thing to do, and ill done if Sir Hubert saw it in time to change the direction of his oncoming lance. All praise to the Tooth (thought Sir Percy), Hubert saw it too late. His lance slithered over the opposing shield with no worse damage than a long scratch; but Percy the Gay’s encountered truly and just where he had meant. And the good old lance did not shiver. It forced backward the shield, which forced backward Sir Hubert the Fair. He lost his stirrups, and his two mailed feet shot up in the air as if he were a passionate man foolishly kicking with both feet at once. He lost his lance. He lost his high horse. There was one tiny instant of silence in which the piping of a bird, indifferent to tournaments, could be heard plainly from the Count’s Grove; then a great sigh from gentles and commons together and a metallic crash as Sir Hubert the Fair came to earth. Mingled with acclamations of lords and ladies for the knightly grace and dexterity of Sir Percy the Gay, derisive noises emanated from t he baseborn for the discomfiture of Sir Hubert the Fair.

The holy hermit embraced the beggar and kissed him on both dirty cheeks.

VI

‘What could have become of that Tooth,’ said Percy the Gay, not gayly or for the first time, ‘is beyond understanding.’

His cavalcade, wending homeward way, was strung out, Percy and Uncle Gregory having dropped behind in anxious talk.

‘You’re sure you had it,’ said Uncle Gregory, going over traveled ground, ‘when you entered the lists?’

‘Beyond peradventure,’ said Percy. ‘But not when I came out, for I looked at once. It would seem that I had it when I unhorsed Hubert; yet mayhap not, for I turned him a shrewd trick.’

‘This,’ said Uncle Gregory, ‘would for certes seem the work of the Devil save that his vile wickedness had not dared approach the Tooth of himself. He must needs by subtlety have induced you to part with it — the which you did not. Why told you me not, Percy, that Anselm permitted you to take the Tooth from the Abbey?’

‘You were asleep,’ said Percy. ‘Methought it as well not, and so did Anselm. Truly am I no more Percy the Gay, but Percy the Damned. It were well for me to turn hermit and keep me alive so long as I may.’

‘A long life of holiness, frugal fare, mortification of the flesh, and meditation on Heaven,’ said Uncle Gregory, but not with much conviction, ‘might do somewhat to efface this sin.’

‘I had it,’ said Percy, ‘in my green silk napkin.’

Uncle Gregory opened his mouth like a fish new out of water. ‘Green?’ he articulated.

‘And sweetly perfumed,’ said Percy. ‘It came from the Levant. Mother gave it me my last birthday.’

‘Now we see Satan’s subtlety,’ cried Uncle Gregory, ‘baiting his trap, as ever, with a fair woman! So you must needs flutter your green napkin at the demoiselle Elinor ? Methought something flew out of it. But methought it a moth.’

Percy the Gay reined in his horse, Uncle Gregory his mule. They were by now within sight of Porklie Hold gate and the rest of their company riding in. Neither looked in that direction, but each stared at other.

‘Now would you tell me, Uncle Gregory,’ said Percy, ‘that I fluttered a green napkin? I had two in my pouch, a green for the Tooth and a white for the nose.‘

Uncle Gregory nodded.

‘We must back to Tor!’ cried the Baron, starting to turn his horse. ‘Mayhap we can find it.’

‘Methink not,’ said Uncle Gregory, getting back something of his common sense. ‘A tooth is a small object and the turf much trampled. We should excite the curious, and were the truth to come out it would make scandal in all Christian countries.’

They rode on again soberly toward Porklie Hold.

Quoth Percy the Gay, more to himself than Uncle Gregory, ‘Liefer were I to lose tooth of mine own than encounter Anselm without Egbert Martyr’s.’

Quoth Uncle Gregory, some minutes nearer the gate, ‘One tooth looks very much like another.’

‘Knew I anything to do,’ said Percy, ‘I were quick to do it.’

‘You have lost the Tooth,’ said Uncle Gregory, ‘yet had you truly liefer, as just said, lose tooth of your own, then, by so losing what you have, might you regain what you have lost, which, if not peradventure the same, were enough like.’

‘Your meaning, Uncle Gregory,’ said Percy gloomily, ‘is as clear as mud.’

‘Have one out,’ said Uncle Gregory, making his thought plainer. ‘There are barber-surgeons in Porklie Hold. Mayhap the penance would somewhat expiate the sin and so lessen Purgatory. As said the lawgiver, “A tooth for a tooth.” At the least, Anselm will soothly take the one for the other.’

‘I will do that deed,’ exclaimed Percy the Gay. ‘But the sooner the better.’

They galloped their mounts. The warder at the town gate guessed them in a hurry to overtake the cavalcade.

The streets were empty, for it was the noon hour when the guilds stopped work and nearly everybody was at table or taking a nap. Townsfolk who had come out to see nobility riding through town had all gone in again. They spurred by narrow ways between close-packed houses; drew rein at a wood and plaster structure in front of which a large wooden tooth topped a striped pole. Open to the street, the lower story needed no such advertisement. Six three-legged stools stood in a row for the convenience of those who must wait, and one three-legged stool in a good light ready for the next customer to be barbered. There was a stout armchair, with straps at the back and over the arms, for tooth work. A shelf held the tools incidental to both mysteries. Near the armchair a small table supported an earthenware jug, a tin basin, and a glass tumbler.

Master Jehan Strong, the barbersurgeon, lived over his shop. The clatter of hoofs brought him to a window, for his calling made him expectant of emergency business even at the noon hour. Recognizing nobility in distress, he hurried down his back stair, bent himself almost to the sawdust, resumed a partly erect position. He rubbed his hands together.

‘I must needs be dispossessed,’ said Percy the Gay, though with no gayety, ‘of a back tooth.’

‘Ah-h-h,’ said Master Strong, sympathetic all over. ‘It aches your nobility?’

‘Whether or not it aches my nobility,’ quoth the Baron, ‘it must out. And that before I have time to change my intent.’

‘As your nobility commands,’ twittered Master Strong. ‘It will take but an eyewink. But your nobility is quite right. Let not “I will not” wait upon “I will.”’

He shoved the three-legged stool away from the best light, pushed the armchair into it, dragged the table with jug, basin, and tumbler within reach from the chair.

‘I am honored,’ babbled Master Strong, doing these things, ‘that your nobility has come to me. In less skillful hands —’

He turned to the shelf, found a tool with a handle like a corkscrew, laid it on the table, poured some water from the jug into the basin, dipped the tool in the water, and dried it with a rather dingy towel. He got a large apron, and with abject apologies fastened it about the Baron’s neck.

‘If your nobility,’ twittered Master Strong, ‘will condescend to sit in the chair —‘

Nobility condescended to sit, and Master Strong started to buckle the straps.

‘No you don’t,’ said Nobility, sitting up.

‘It is the custom, my lord,’ said Master Strong. ‘Although there will be no pain —’

‘There will be pain a-plenty, and not mine,’ said Sir Percy significantly, ‘if that you do not get you down to your business and remove me my tooth.’

Master Strong looked at Uncle Gregory, who was doubtful himself, but decided that the patient had better be humored. He said as much with his eye. Master Strong accepted the decision, though reluctant, replying with his eye that Uncle Gregory no doubt knew Sir Percy better than he did.

‘We will omit the custom,’ said Master Strong. ‘Now if your nobility will repose his head and open his mouth —’

Master Strong and Uncle Gregory peered in together.

‘ A fine set of teeth,’ said the expert.

‘I think this one will do,’ said Uncle Gregory, putting in a finger to indicate a back tooth. Master Strong put in a finger and tried to move the tooth.

‘There seems naught ill with it,’ said Master Strong. ‘Is it not some other that aches his nobility?’

‘None of them ache his nobility,’ said Uncle Gregory impatiently.

‘If none ache,’ said Master Strong, ‘it were pity to spoil so fine a set.’

‘Cease your babble,’ said the Baron, as distinctly as he could with his mouth open, ‘or I ’ll bite your fingers. Get on. Have it over.’

‘Wider,’ said Master Strong.

He left Percy that way, got a small wooden wedge from the shelf, dipped it in the basin, dried it with the towel, and inserted it deftly in the Baron’s mouth between uppers and lowers. Then, still shaking his own head wonderingly, he gathered the Baron’s chin into the crook of his left elbow, settled himself firmly on his feet, and reached with his right hand for the tool on the table.

‘If your nobility,’said Master Strong, ‘will condescend to think of something pleasant and hold tight to the chair —’

Uncle Gregory, realizing the practical helplessness of human sympathy, looked out of the front of the shop. A town urchin, standing interestedly outside, made a face at him; and Uncle Gregory, without knowing that he did it, made a face at the urchin. He heard sounds as of a struggle behind him, but turned not around till the fight seemed to be over. Percy was sitting up in the chair, and Master Strong was pouring him a glass of water from the earthenware jug.

VII

‘Now in good truth, Uncle Gregory,’ said Percy the Gay about a year later, riding with that worthy man to drop in at the Abbey, ‘did I not know by unforgettable hap that the Tooth were mine own and not Egbert’s, I would be as certain it were Egbert’s tooth and not mine.’

‘I had me no doubt,’ said Gregory, ‘that it would content Anselm till he found out that it worked no more miracles. And then he would peradventure have blamed himself that you took it to Tor.’

‘But it works miracles,’ said Percy. ‘And there is little, if anything, about me to explain that.’