And therefore when I shall see them fallen into a
river, and ready to be drowned, I shall make them
a fair long sermon de contemptu mundi, et fuga seculi;
and when they are stark dead, shall then go to their
aid and succour in fishing after them. Be quiet,
said Gymnast, and stir not, my minion. I am
now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom,
for thou art a pretty little gentle monachus.
Monachus in claustro non valet ova duo; sed quando
est extra, bene valet triginta. I have seen above
five hundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better
countenance in his dangling and pendilatory swagging.
Truly, if I had so good a one, I would willingly
hang thus all my lifetime. What, said the monk,
have you almost done preaching? Help me, in
the name of God, seeing you will not in the name of
the other spirit, or, by the habit which I wear, you
shall repent it, tempore et loco praelibatis.
Then Gymnast alighted from his horse, and, climbing
up the walnut-tree, lifted up the monk with one hand
by the gussets of his armour under the armpits, and
with the other undid his vizor from the stump of the
broken branch; which done, he let him fall to the
ground and himself after. As soon as the monk
was down, he put off all his armour, and threw away
one piece after another about the field, and, taking
to him again his staff of the cross, remounted up
to his horse, which Eudemon had caught in his running
away. Then went they on merrily, riding along
on the highway.
Chapter 1.XLIII.
How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met
with by Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth
(Tirevant.), and then was taken prisoner by his enemies.
Picrochole, at the relation of those who had escaped
out of the broil and defeat wherein Tripet was untriped,
grew very angry that the devils should have so run
upon his men, and held all that night a counsel of
war, at which Rashcalf and Touchfaucet (Hastiveau,
Touquedillon.), concluded his power to be such that
he was able to defeat all the devils of hell if they
should come to jostle with his forces. This Picrochole
did not fully believe, though he doubted not much
of it. Therefore sent he under the command and
conduct of the Count Drawforth, for discovering of
the country, the number of sixteen hundred horsemen,
all well mounted upon light horses for skirmish and
thoroughly besprinkled with holy water; and everyone
for their field-mark or cognizance had the sign of
a star in his scarf, to serve at all adventures in
case they should happen to encounter with devils,
that by the virtue, as well of that Gregorian water
as of the stars which they wore, they might make them
disappear and evanish.
