He chattered about battles and sieges, and things which were new to Gerard; and he was one of those who make little incidents wherever they go.

He passed nobody without addressing them.

"They don't understand it, but it wakes them up," said he.

But whenever they fell in with a monk or priest.

He pulled a long face, and sought the reverend father's blessing, and fearlessly poured out on him floods of German words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence--He doffed his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and with eagle eye discerned her best feature, and complimented her on it in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie, down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness and despatch, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and set it upon a nest.