curst woman! so ’twas thou!  Thou hast undone me:  but, God’s faith, I will pay thee out.”  Whereupon he was upstairs in a trice, and having discharged his great load of stones in a parlour, rushed with fell intent upon his wife, and laid hold of her by the hair, and threw her down at his feet, and beat and kicked her in every part of her person with all the force he had in his arms and legs, insomuch that he left never a hair of her head or bone of her body unscathed, and ’twas all in vain that she laid her palms together and crossed her fingers and cried for mercy.

Now Buffalmacco and Bruno, after making merry a while with the warders of the gate, had set off again at a leisurely pace, keeping some distance behind Calandrino.  Arrived at his door, they heard the noise of the sound thrashing that he was giving his wife; and making as if they were but that very instant come upon the scene, they called him.  Calandrino, flushed, all of a sweat, and out of breath, shewed himself at the window, and bade them come up.  They, putting on a somewhat angry air, did so; and espied Calandrino sitting in the parlour, amid the stones which lay all about, untrussed, and puffing with the air of a man spent with exertion, while his lady lay in one of the corners, weeping bitterly, her hair all dishevelled, her clothes torn to shreds, and her face livid, bruised and battered.  So after surveying the room a while:—­“What means this, Calandrino?” quoth they.  “Art thou minded to build thee a wall, that we see so many stones about?” And then, as they received no answer, they continued:—­“And how’s this?  How comes Monna Tessa in this plight?  ’Twould seem thou hast given her a beating!  What unheard-of doings are these?” What with the weight of the stones that he had carried, and the fury with which he had beaten his wife, and the mortification that he felt at the miscarriage of his enterprise, Calandrino was too spent to utter a word by way of reply.  Wherefore in a menacing tone Buffalmacco began again:—­“However out of sorts thou mayst have been, Calandrino, thou shouldst not have played us so scurvy a trick as thou hast.  To take us with thee to the Mugnone in quest of this stone of rare virtue, and then, without so much as saying either God-speed or Devil-speed, to be off, and leave us there like a couple of gowks!  We take it not a little unkindly:  and rest assured that thou shalt never so fool us again.”  Whereto with an effort Calandrino replied:—­“Comrades, be not wroth with me:  ’tis not as you think.  I, luckless wight! found the stone:  listen, and you will no longer doubt that I say sooth.  When you began saying one to the other:—­’Where is Calandrino?’ I was within ten paces of you, and marking that you came by without seeing me, I went before, and so, keeping ever a little ahead of you, I came hither.”  And then he told them the whole story of what they had said and done from beginning to end, and shewed them his back and heel, how they had been mauled by the stones; after which:—­“And