"The bishop prepared a miracle for this evening, in order to frighten the Frankish count with hell. Two clerks carried into the apartment under the banquet hall large bales of hay, bundles of fagots and boxes of sulphur. They are to set them on fire and yell like devils possessed; then one of the mosaic slabs of the flooring in the hall will sink down; it drops by means of the same contrivance that used to remove it in order to descend to this gallery for the warm baths." "And the stupid Frank, imagining he sees one of the mouths of hell yawning wide, will make some generous donation to the holy man--" "You guessed it, Ronan. So, then, we shall have to wait until the miracle is over. When the count is gone and the villa slumbering you and your men can come in safely." "The bishopess for me!" "To us the iron money-chest, the gold and silver vases! To us the bishop's full money-bags--and then we shall scatter alms among the poor who have not a denier!" "To us," cried another set, "the full wine pouches and bags of grain--to us the hams and smoked meats! Alms, alms to the poor who hunger!" "To all of us the wardrobes, the fine clothes, the warm robes--and then alms, alms to the poor who suffer with cold!" "And then, fire to the episcopal villa--and to the sack!" "Freedom to the slaves!" "We shall take with us the young girls, who will follow us gladly!" "Long live love and the Vagrery!" cried Ronan, saying which he struck up the song: "My father was a Bagauder, and I a Vagre am; born under the green foliage as any bird in May. "Where is my mother? I do not know, forsooth! "A Vagre has no wife. "The poniard in one hand, the torch held in the other, he moves from burg to burg and villas kept by bishops; he carries off the wives or concubines of bishops and of counts, and takes the belles along into the thickest of the woods! "And first they weep and then they laugh. The jolly Vagre knows the art of love. In his strong arms the loving belles forget full soon the cacochymic bishop or the brutified duke!" "Long live the Vagre's love!" "You are in rollicking mood--" "Aye, Simon, we are about to put a bishop's house to the sack!" "You will be hanged, burned, quartered!" "No more nor less so than Aman and Aelian, our prophets, Bagauders in their days as we are Vagres in ours. For all that, the poor say: 'Good Aelian!' 'Good Aman!' May they some day say: 'Good Ronan!' I would die happy, Simon!" "Always living in the recesses of the woods--" "Verdure is so cheerful!" "At the bottom of caverns--" "It is warm there in winter, cool in summer!" "Always on the alert; always on the run over hill and valley; always wandering without hearth or home--" "But always living free, old Simon. Yes, free! free! instead of leading a slave's life under the whip of some Frankish master or some bishop! Join us, Simon!" "I am too old for that!"