Thomas the Cordwainer looked afeared; he would for a moment that he had not won that game. The sudden noise interrupted the little group round the hearth fire, where Pierce the Clerk, Watkin and Long Hugh were deep in talk with the barefooted friar. A stranger sat quietly listening by them. ‘Steady,’ cried Pierce. ‘Thou hast that same Hell so often on thy lips that I doubt but it will be thine own place at the last.’ Ralph of the Skeely-Eye swung unsteadily on his feet, and turned his fierce, bloodshot eyes on Pierce. ‘God blight thee, thou snivelling hound,’ he cried. ‘And what is it to thee if it is to Hell that I fare?’ He bared his thick hairy arm and pointed to its corded knots of muscle. ‘Seest thou this arm? Here is bone and sinew and muscle enough to knock a way through the world for me, and God help the man who comes between me and my will. While I am man of flesh and blood I will do my pleasure and play my game; when I’m dead, so-so, let the Devil have his due. ’Tis all fair enough; my day now, his day then, but let him keep his distance till the clock strikes.’ He paused, glaring fiercely round on the company. The barefoot friar caught his eye, regarding him steadily with blue and lambent orbs. ‘Thou fool,’ quoth he in deep, sad tones. ‘Thou poor fool. Knowest thou not that the Lord hath given this world into the hand of the Adversary, that he may weigh unto men according to their deserts and reap unto them after their sowing? Even now, while thou standest blaspheming, the Devil is behind thee and laugheth at thy folly till he is like to burst. When the measure of thine iniquity is heaped to the full, although thou be all unwitting of the date thereof, thou shalt straightway be borne in his fierce talons as the tares to the furnace, which burneth evermore.’ Ralph started at the mention of the Devil and cast a fearful glance behind him; then, reassured, he gave his leather girdle a hitch and answered sullenly. ‘I’ll not speak with friars. When my spell’s up, let the Devil come; till then I am neither his nor thine nor any man’s but mine own.’ The friar straightway rose from his seat and, swiftly crossing the floor, seized Ralph by the arm. ‘Come, sit thee here,’ he said, ‘and I will tell thee that which, if it melt not thy soul in utter penitence, will at least show thee the power of the Prince of Darkness and the miserable end of sinners such as thou.’ He half led and half dragged Ralph to the chimney, and forced him to sit down upon a bench. Ralph made but a feeble resistance, for he was subdued and nigh scared by the friar’s eye. Pierce, Thomas, Watkin and Long Hugh gathered eagerly round, for the deep voice of the friar charmed them like church music when it breaks upon the ear at midnight. His eyes held them and they listened to him as to a man speaking in a vision. Even from Ralph’s dull face the fumes of strong drink half dissipated. The stranger listened from his seat a little way off.