Bab Bab 35 · How Gymnast very souply and

Chapter 1.XXXV.

How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain Tripet and others of

Picrochole’s men.

When they heard these words, some amongst them began to be afraid, and

blessed themselves with both hands, thinking indeed that he had been a

devil disguised, insomuch that one of them, named Good John, captain of the

trained bands of the country bumpkins, took his psalter out of his

codpiece, and cried out aloud, Hagios ho theos. If thou be of God, speak;

if thou be of the other spirit, avoid hence, and get thee going. Yet he

went not away. Which words being heard by all the soldiers that were

there, divers of them being a little inwardly terrified, departed from the

place. All this did Gymnast very well remark and consider, and therefore

making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising

himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly, with his short sword by his

thigh, shifting his foot in the stirrup, performed the stirrup-leather

feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith

launched himself aloft in the air, and placed both his feet together on the

saddle, standing upright with his back turned towards the horse’s head.

Now, said he, my case goes backward. Then suddenly in the same very

posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and, turning to

the left hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into its

former stance, without missing one jot. Ha, said Tripet, I will not do

that at this time, and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have

failed, I will undo this leap. Then with a marvellous strength and

agility, turning towards the right hand, he fetched another frisking gambol

as before, which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the hind-bow of the

saddle, raised himself up, and sprung in the air, poising and upholding his

whole body upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and

whirled himself about three times. At the fourth, reversing his body, and

overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching anything,

he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, springing with all his

body into the air, upon the thumb of his left hand, and in that posture,

turning like a windmill, did most actively do that trick which is called

the miller’s pass. After this, clapping his right hand flat upon the

middle of the saddle, he gave himself such a jerking swing that he thereby

seated himself upon the crupper, after the manner of gentlewomen sitting on

horseback. This done, he easily passed his right leg over the saddle, and

placed himself like one that rides in croup. But, said he, it were better

for me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon

the crupper before him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only

supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air,

and straight found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a good

settlement. Then with a somersault springing into the air again, he fell

to stand with both his feet close together upon the saddle, and there made

above a hundred frisks, turns, and demipommads, with his arms held out

across, and in so doing cried out aloud, I rage, I rage, devils, I am stark

mad, devils, I am mad, hold me, devils, hold me, hold, devils, hold, hold!

Whilst he was thus vaulting, the rogues in great astonishment said to one

another, By cock’s death, he is a goblin or a devil thus disguised. Ab

hoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as if they

had been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog that carrieth

away a goose-wing in his mouth. Then Gymnast, spying his advantage,

alighted from his horse, drew his sword, and laid on great blows upon the

thickset and highest crested among them, and overthrew them in great heaps,

hurt, wounded, and bruised, being resisted by nobody, they thinking he had

been a starved devil, as well in regard of his wonderful feats in vaulting,

which they had seen, as for the talk Tripet had with him, calling him poor

devil. Only Tripet would have traitorously cleft his head with his

horseman’s sword, or lance-knight falchion; but he was well armed, and felt

nothing of the blow but the weight of the stroke. Whereupon, turning

suddenly about, he gave Tripet a home-thrust, and upon the back of that,

whilst he was about to ward his head from a slash, he ran him in at the

breast with a hit, which at once cut his stomach, the fifth gut called the

colon, and the half of his liver, wherewith he fell to the ground, and in

falling gushed forth above four pottles of pottage, and his soul mingled

with the pottage.

This done, Gymnast withdrew himself, very wisely considering that a case of

great adventure and hazard should not be pursued unto its utmost period,

and that it becomes all cavaliers modestly to use their good fortune,

without troubling or stretching it too far. Wherefore, getting to horse,

he gave him the spur, taking the right way unto Vauguyon, and Prelinguand

with him.