Now while this song did last it seemed to me as if nightingale, owl, and echo had of a truth joined therein, and had I ever heard the morning star or had been able to play its melody on my bagpipe, I had surely run out of the hut to take my trick also, so sweet did this harmony seem to me: yet I fell asleep again and woke not till day was far advanced, when the hermit stood before me and said, "Up, child, I will give thee to eat and thereafter shew thee the way through the wood, so that thou comest to where people dwell, and also before night to the nearest village." So I asked him, what be these things, "people" and "village"? "What," says he, "hast never been in any village and knowest not what people or folks be?" "Nay," said I, "nowhere save here have I been: yet tell me what be these things, folk and people and village." "God save us," answered the hermit, "art thou demented or very cunning?" "Nay," said I, "I am my mammy's and dad's boy, and neither Master Demented nor Master Cunning." Then the hermit shewed his amazement with sighs and crossing of himself, and says he, "'Tis well, dear child, I am determined if God will better to instruct thee." So then our questions and answers fell out as the ensuing chapter sheweth. _Chap. viii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS BY HIS NOBLE DISCOURSE PROCLAIMED HIS EXCELLENT QUALITIES Hermit. What is thy name? Simplicissimus. My name is "Lad." H. I can see well enough that thou art no girl: but how did thy father and mother call thee? S. I never had either father or mother. H. Who gave thee then thy shirt? S. Oho! Why, my mammy. H. What did thy mother call thee? S. She called me "Lad," ay, and "rogue, silly gaby, and gallowsbird." H. Who, then, was thy mammy's husband? S. No one. H. With whom, then, did thy mammy sleep at night? S. With my dad. H. What did thy dad call thee? S. He called me "Lad." H. What was his name? S. His name was Dad. H. What did thy mammy call him? S. Dad, and sometimes also "Master." H. Did she never call him aught besides? S. Yea, that did she. H. And what then? S. "Beast," "coarse brute," "drunken pig," and other the like, when she would scold him. H. Thou beest but an ignorant creature, that knowest not thy parents' name nor thine own. S. Oho! neither dost thou know it. H. Canst thou say thy prayers? S. Nay, my mammy and our Ursel did uprear the beds. H. I ask thee not that, but whether thou knowest thy Paternoster? S. That do I. H. Say it then. S. Our father which art heaven, hallowed be name, to thy kingdom come, thy will come down on earth as it says heaven, give us debts as we give our debtors: lead us not into no temptation, but deliver us from the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. H. God help us! Knowest thou naught of our Blessed Lord God? S. Yea, yea: 'tis he that stood by our chamber-door; my mammy brought him home from the church feast and stuck him up there.