Abruptly she moved to the fire and again began to stir the mess, while the suppressed excitement in the room at once subsided. A minstrel lightly touched his battered dulcimer; a poet hummed a song in the dialect of thieves; a juggler began practising some deft work for hand and eye, and he of the hare lip sank quietly into a corner and patiently watched the simmering pot. The dwarf, with some misgiving, as a dog that is beaten crawls cautiously out of its kennel, crept from beneath the table.
"Oh, mistress," he whimpered, "some of it has boiled over!"
"Boiled over!" echoed the morio, mournfully.
At the same time the woman grasped the handle of the heavy kettle, lifted it from the jack, displaying in her bared arms the muscles of a man, and, staggering beneath the load, bore it steaming to the table. Amid the subsequent confusion, the gipsy held aloof from the demolition of the rabbit, and, seating herself at the foot of the table, began moodily once more to turn the cards.
A merry droll acted as host and dipped freely for all with the long spoon, commenting the while he dispensed the mess according to the wants of the miscellaneous gathering: "Pot-luck! 'Tis luck, and they're no field mice in it! There's everything else!" or "A bit of rabbit, my masters! I'll warrant he'll hop down your throats as fast as e'er he jumped a hillock." And, when one ate too greedily, slap went a spoonful of gravy o'er him with: "I thought you would catch it, knave!"
"Are they not blithe devils 'round the caldron?" muttered the woman. "There it is again!"--Bending over the bits of pasteboard on the table. "The duke here! And the fool on horseback! What do the cards mean?"
"That I must have the horse, Nanette," said the duke's jester, standing motionless and firm before the fireplace.
"Are you the fool?" she asked, more to herself than him. "Why does he wish to ride away?"
"Will you sell me the horse?" he demanded.
She hesitated. Around them danced the shadows of the kettle-gourmands:
"A kern and a drole, a varlet and a blade A drab and a rep, a skit and a jade--"
sang the street poet; the dwarf and the morio (a lilliputian and Gulliver) fought a mimic combat; the juggler and the clown, who could eat no more, were keeping time to a chorus by beating with their empty trenchers on the table.