Yet the heart of man is a vain thing; for when I, who am known to have learnt all that can be recovered from the mists of past times concerning Count Antonio, am asked--and whether it be by men or women, by boys or girls, aye, or by toddling infants--to tell them a tale of the great Count Antonio, it is not of the prudent ruler, nor of the wise counsellor, nay, nor even of the leader of the Duke's army, that they would hear, but always of Antonio when he was an outlaw, banned by his Prince and by the Church, living by the light of his own heart and by the strength of his own hand, secured only by the love and duty of the lawless men who followed him, and risking his life every day and every hour for the sake of the bright eyes of that lady who waited for him in the city. And when I, thinking to check this perversity, bid them look rather on his more worthy and sober days, they answer with a laugh, "But why, father, do you not write the story of those more worthy and sober days?" Nor will they believe when I say that it is but because the deeds of those days are elsewhere recorded. In good truth, I believe that in our hearts we love a lawless man! Here, then, ye perverse children, are the stories; they are all that you shall have from me. Read them; may they teach you to be true comrades, faithful lovers of one maid, and, since strife must needs come until God's pleasure bring peace to reign on earth, able, when occasion calls, to give and take good blows. Aye, never laugh. I have said it. A Churchman is a man.