“The dice before we go.”

“Throw against me,” said Hugh to our Martin.

“I cannot, I never played in my life.”

“Then the sooner you begin the better.

“Here, roaring Ralph, this innocent young acolyte says he has never touched the dice.”

“Then the sooner he begins the better.

“Come, stake a mark against me.”

“He hasn’t got one.”

Shame, false shame, conquered Martin’s repugnance.  He threw one of his few coins down, and Ralph did the same.

“You throw first—­six and four—­ten.  Here goes—­I have only two threes, the marks are yours.”

“Nay, I don’t want them.”

“Take them and be hanged.  D’ye think I can’t spare a mark?”

“Fighting, dicing, drinking,” and then came to Martin’s mind the words of Adam de Maresco, uttered that very morning, and now he determined to go at once at any cost, and turned to the door.

“Nay, we are all going to see thee safe home.  The boves boreales may be grazing in the streets.”

“I hear them!  Burr! burr! burr!”

Down the stairs they all staggered.  Martin felt so overcome as he emerged into the air that he did not know at first how to walk straight, yet he had not drunk half so much as the rest.

“Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute.”

But happily (to ease the mind of our readers we will say at once) he was not to take many steps on this road.

“Magog!  Magog! open! open!”

“Not such a noise, you’ll wake the old governor above,”—­alluding to the master of the hostel.

“He won’t wake, not he.  It does not pay to see too much.  He knows his own interests.”

“Past curfew,” growled Magog.  “Can’t let any one out.”

“That only means he wants another coin.”

“Open, Magog, we are going to pray at Saint Frideswide’s shrine for thee.”

“We are going to get another deer for thee at Woodstock.”

“We are going by the king’s invitation to visit the palace, and see the ghost of fair Rosamond.”

“We are going to sup with the Franciscans—­six split peas and a thimbleful of water to each man.”

Even the venal porter hesitated to let such a crew into the streets, but he gave way under the pressure of another coin.  Cudgel in hand they went forth, and as they passed the hostel they called “Ape Hall” they sang aloud: 

Come forth, ye apes, and scratch your polls,
Your learning is in question,
And while ye scratch, eat what ye catch,
To quicken your digestion.

Two or three “apes” looked out of the window much disgusted, as well they might be, and were driven back by a shower of stones.  Onward—­shouting, roaring, singing, but they met no one.  All the world was in bed.  The moon alone looked down upon them as she waded through the clouds, casting brilliant light here, leaving black shadows there.