The Heptameron (Machen)/Novel 29

In the county of Maine there lived at a village named Carrelles a rich farmer, who in his old age had taken to wife a pretty wench, and had of her no children. And she, to console herself, was exceeding friendly with many gentlemen, and when they failed her she returned to her last resource, I would say the church, and took for companion in her sin him who was able to absolve her of it—that is, her spiritual shepherd, who often came to visit his sheep. Her husband, old and stupid, had no suspicion of her, but since he was a harsh man and a sturdy, his wife played her mystery as privily as might be, fearing lest, if he was advertised of it, he would kill her. And on one day, when he was gone out, his wife, thinking he would not soon return, sent for master parson to come and confess her. And while they played together her husband came, and so suddenly that the parson had no time to retreat from the house; but looking whither he might hide himself, he climbed, by the woman's advice, up into the granary, and covered the trap-door with a winnowing fan. Thereupon the husband came into the room, and fearing he might have some suspicion, she made him eat and drink at dinner in such wise that, being afore weary with his toil in the fields, he fell asleep sitting in his chair beside the hearth. The parson, thinking he had spent enough time in the granary, came to the trap-door, and stretching out his neck as much as he was able, perceived the good man to be asleep. But while he was looking at him he leant by mischance so weightily upon the winnowing fan, that both fan and man came down upon the sleeper, who at this awoke. And the parson rising before the other had seen him, said: "Friend, here is your fan, and many thanks for it." Thus saying he fled home. The poor farmer, all astounded, asked his wife: "What is this?" She replied: "'Tis but the fan, ​sweetheart, the parson has borrowed, and now returns to you." And he, grumbling mightily, said: "'Tis a very rude fashion of returning what one has borrowed, for I thought the house was about my ears." In this way did the parson save himself at the expense of the good man, who found no fault at all in him save the roughness he had used in returning him his winnowing-fan.

"His master the devil was keeping him, ladies, to the end that he might have him in his hands and torment him for a longer while." "Think not," said Geburon, "that simple folk and men of low estate are less crafty than we; nay, they are the much more cunning. For prithee, consider thieves, murderers, sorcerers, utterers of false coin, and all this sort of people, whose wit is never at rest, they are all poor and apprenticed to some mere mechanical craft." "It is no matter of surprise to me," said Parlamente, "that they excel us in craft, but that love should torment them amid their manifold labours, and that so gentle a passion can hold assize in a churlish heart." "Mistress," said Saffredent, "you know the words of Master Jehan de Mehun:

And as to the love in the tale it is not of a sort to make one carry harness; for since the poorer sort of people have not our riches or honours, they have in place the natural things more to their pleasure than we. Their meats are not so dainty, but their appetite is keener, and they live better on coarse bread than we on pheasant. Not so brave and fine their beds as ours, but their sleep is sweeter and their rest more calm. No ladies have they prinked and painted like the goddesses of our idolatry, but they enjoy their pleasures of this kind more often than we without fear of tell-tale tongues, save it be of the beasts and birds that see them. In what we have, they are wanting; and where we have not they have abundance." "Prithee," said Nomerfide, "have done with this peasant and his wife, and let us finish our day before the bells are ringing unto evensong. And let Hircan bring it to a close." "Truly," said he, "I have as strange and as pitiful a case to tell as you ​have ever heard. And though it is not to my humour to tell a tale which brings shame to the ladies, since I know that men are so evil-minded that for the fault of one they blame you all, yet the matter is so strange an one that it must needs be told. Perchance, too, the foolish ignorance of one being brought to light will make the rest more prudent. And so, nothing fearful, I will tell you my tale."