six years ago, there was many a wild tale told me hereof, but nought within credit.’
Now was the chine served in amid shallots on a great dish of gold, borne by four serving men, so weighty was the dish and its burden. Some light there glowed in the dull eye of Corsus to see it come, and Corund rose up with brimming goblet, and the Witches cried, ‘The song of the chine, O Corund!’ Great as a neat stood Corund in his russet velvet kirtle, girt about with a broad belt of crocodile hide edged with gold. From his shoulders hung a cloak of wolf’s skin with the hair inside, the outside tanned and diapered with purple silk. Daylight was nigh gone, and through a haze of savours rising from the feast the flamboys shone on his bald head set about with thick grizzled curls, and on his keen grey eyes, and his long and bushy beard. He cried, ‘Give me a rouse, my lords! and if any fail to bear me out in the refrain, I’ll ne’er love him more.’ And he sang this song of the chine in a voice like the sounding of a gong; and all they roared in the refrain till the piled dishes on the service tables rang:
Bring out the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne to me,
And how lie charge him come and see,
Brawn tusked, Brawn well sowst and fine,
With a precious cup of Muscadine:
How shall I sing, how shall I look,
In honour of the Master-Cook?
The Pig shall turn round and answer me,
Canst thou spare me a shoulder? A wy, a wy,
The Duck, Goose, and Capon, good fellows all three,
Shall dance thee an antick, so shall the Turkey:
But O! the Cold Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:
How shall I sing, how shall I look,
In honour of the Master-Cook?
With brewis Ile noynt thee from head to th’ heel,
Shal make thee run nimbler than the new oyld wheel;
With Pye-crust wee’l make thee
The eighth wise man to be;
But O! the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:
How shall I sing, how shall I look,
In honour of the Master-Cook?
When the chine was carved and the cups replenished, the King issued command saying, ‘Call hither my dwarf, and let him act his antick gestures before us.’
Therewith came the dwarf into the hall, mopping and mowing, clad in a sleeveless jerkin of striped yellow and red mockado. And his long and nerveless tail dragged on the floor behind him.
‘Somewhat fulsome is this dwarf,’ said La Fireez.
‘Speak within door, Prince,’ said Corinius. ‘Know’st not his quality? A hath been envoy extraordinary from King Gorice XI of memory ever glorious unto Lord Juss in Galing and the lords of Demonland. And ’twas the greatest courtesy we could study to do them, to send ’em this looby for our ambassador.’
The dwarf practised before them to the great content of the lords of Witchland and their guests, save for his japing upon Corinius and the Prince, calling them two peacocks, so like in their bright plumage that none might tell either from other; which somewhat galled them both.
And now was the King’s heart waxen glad with wine, and he pledged Gro, saying, ‘Be merry, Gro, and doubt not that I will fulfil my word I spake unto thee, and make thee king in Zajë Zaculo.’
‘Lord, I am yours for ever,’ answered Gro. ‘But methinks I am little fitted to be a king. Methinks I was ever a better steward of other men’s fortunes than of mine own.’
Whereat the Duke Corsus, that was sprawled on the table well nigh asleep, cried out in a great voice but husky withal, ‘A brace of divels broil me if thou sayest not sooth! If thine own fortunes come off but bluely, care not a rush. Give me some wine, a full weeping goblet. Ha! Ha! Whip i’ away! Ha! Ha! Witchland! When wear you the crown of Demonland, O King?’
‘How now, Corsus,’ said the King, ‘art thou drunk?’
But La Fireez said, ‘Ye sware peace with the Demons in the Foliot Isles, and by mighty oaths are ye bound to put by for ever your claims of lordship over Demonland. I hoped your quarrels were ended.’
‘Why so they are,’ said the King.
Corsus chuckled weakly. ‘Ye say well: very well, O King, very well, La Fireez. Our quarrels are ended. No room for more. For, look you, Demonland is a ripe fruit ready to drop me thus in our mouth.’ Leaning back he gaped his mouth wide open, suspending by one leg above it an hortolan basted with its own dripping. The bird slipped through his fingers, and fell against his cheek, and so on to his bosom, and so on the floor, and his brazen byrny and the sleeves of his pale green kirtle were splashed with the gravy.
Whereat Corinius let fly a great peal of laughter; but La Fireez flushed with anger and said, scowling, ‘Drunkenness, my lord, is a jest for thralls to laugh at.’
‘Then sit thou mum, Prince,’ said Corinius, ‘lest thy quality be called in question. For my part I laugh at my thoughts, and they be very choice.’
But Corsus wiped his face and fell a-singing:
Whene’er I bib the wine down,
Asleepe drop all my cares.
A fig for fret,
A fig for sweat,
A fig care I for cares.
Sith death must come, though I say nay,
Why grieve my life’s days with affaires?
Come, bib we then the wine down
Of Bacchus faire to see;
For alway while we bibbing be,
Asleepe drop all our cares.
With that, Corsus sank heavily forward again on the table. And the dwarf, whose japes all else in that company had taken well even when themselves were the mark thereof, leaped up and down, crying, ‘Hear a wonder! This pudding singeth. When with two platters, thralls! ye have served it o’ the board without a dish. One were too little to contain so vast a deal of bullock’s blood and lard. Swift, and carve it ere the vapours burst the skin.’
‘I will carve thee, filth,’ said Corsus, lurching to his feet; and catching the dwarf by the wrist with one hand he gave him a great box on the ear with the other. The dwarf squealed and bit Corsus’s thumb to the bone, so that he loosed his hold; and the dwarf fled from the hall, while the company laughed pleasantly.
‘So flieth folly before wisdom which is in wine,’ said the King. ‘The night is young: bring me botargoes, and caviare and toast. Drink, Prince. The red Thramnian wine that is thick like honey wooeth the soul to divine philosophy. How vain a thing is ambition.
