Charles Deulin

“ When the High Mass had been sung, all the worthy cripples threw away their sham humps, and bandages, and wooden legs, and they laughed, and danced, and skipped, and revelled, so that it was a pleasure to see so many people enjoying themselves. ”

“ At last Johnny came to another farm, and there the farmer took in him and his cow.
Now, this farmer had a big pretty maid, as strong as a man, and he bade her milk Johnny’s cow. But, as she milked, the cow switched its tail in her eyes and made her see quite an illumination. ”

“ The farmer’s wife stared at him with all her eyes.
‘What do they call you?’ says she.
‘Silly Billy,’ says he.
‘Oh, don’t I see.
‘Yes, I see,’ said the woman, laughing to his very face. ‘Listen, my lad! You are big, and strong, and you seem honest. Now Jim, our man, is off on the King’s wars. Will you take his place?’
‘Will you let me taste roast goose?’
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‘On Sunday, as sure as sure, you shall have your fill of goose; I have to send some one to Hergnies, to my cousin’s, to-morrow. You shall start, at peep of day, and bring me a good fat goose. ”

“ Every one thought it was hopeless to get a laugh from the Passing Belle. Then the King, who was a very religious man, determined to take her to the shrine of Saint Calixtus. Of course, if the Saint could make her smile, she would become a nun, and perhaps, in the long run, would have been as solemn and lugubrious as ever.
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CHAPTER XI.
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LL the Court came, and all the Court nearly died with laughing at the procession of the halt, and lame, and blind. ‘Go it, ye cripples,’ cried his Majesty, in convulsions of merriment! ”

“ They would not have been funny, but very pitiful, if they had really been lame and blind, but the truth is that they were all persons whom the good Saint had cured, and now they were only making believe, for one day in the year, to suffer from their old complaints. ”

“ She was as sad and sorry as the mournful Bell that rings for a death, and so they called her the Passing Belle; it was a sort of joke. *
* The French country people call the Passing Bell La Dolente, and this unhappy Princess they named La Belle Dolente. If any child cannot understand this, she may consult her nice French grammar, and her French and English dictionary, and turn it over in her mind till next Christmas. ”