"The ancient was right though," said Gerard. "Never have I risen so refreshed since I left my native land. Henceforth let us shun great towns, and still lie in a convent or a cow-house; for I'd liever sleep on fresh straw than on linen well washed six months agone; and the breath of kine it is sweeter than that of Christians, let alone the garlic, which men and women folk affect, but cowen abhor from, and so do I, St. Bavon be my witness!" The soldier eyed him from head to foot: "Now but for that little tuft on your chin I should take you for a girl: and by the fingernails of St. Luke, no ill-favoured one neither." These three towns proved types and repeated themselves with slight variations for many a weary league: but, even when he could get neither a convent nor a cow-house, Gerard learned in time to steel himself to the inevitable, and to emulate his comrade, whom he looked on as almost superhuman for hardihood of body and spirit. There was however a balance to all this veneration. Denys, like his predecessor Achilles, had his weak part, his very weak part thought Gerard. His foible was "woman." Whatever he was saying or doing, he stopped short at sight of a farthingale, and his whole soul became occupied with that garment and its inmate till they had disappeared; and sometimes for a good while after. He often put Gerard to the blush by talking his amazing German to such females as he caught standing or sitting indoors or out; at which they stared; and when he met a peasant girl on the road, he took off his cap to her and saluted her as if she was a queen. The invariable effect of which was, that she suddenly drew herself up quite stiff like a soldier on parade, and wore a forbidding countenance. "They drive me to despair," said Denys. "Is that a just return to a civil bonnetade? They are large, they are fair, but stupid as swans." "What breeding can you expect from women that wear no hose?" inquired Gerard; "and some of them no shoon? They seem to me reserved, and modest, as becomes their sex; and sober, whereas the men are little better than beer-barrels. Would you have them brazen as well as hoseless?" "A little affability adorns even beauty," sighed Denys. "Then let them alone, sith they are not to your taste," retorted Gerard. "What, is there no sweet face in Bergundy that would pale to see you so wrapped up in strange women?" "Half a dozen that would cry their eyes out." "Well then!" "But it is a long way to Burgundy." "Ay, to the foot, but not to the heart. I am there, sleeping and waking, and almost every minute of the day." "In Burgundy? Why I thought you had never--" "In Burgundy?" cried Gerard contemptuously. "No, in sweet Sevenbergen. Ah! well-a-day! well-a-day!" Many such dialogues as this passed between the pair on the long and weary road, and neither could change the other.