How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis.

Let us return, quoth Panurge, not ceasing, to the uttermost of our abilities, to ply him with wholesome admonitions for the furtherance of his salvation. Let us go back, for God’s sake; let us go, in the name of God. It will be a very meritorious work, and of great charity in us to deal so in the matter, and provide so well for him that, albeit he come to lose both body and life, he may at least escape the risk and danger of the eternal damnation of his soul. We will by our holy persuasions bring him to a sense and feeling of his escapes, induce him to acknowledge his faults, move him to a cordial repentance of his errors, and stir up in him such a sincere contrition of heart for his offences, as will prompt him with all earnestness to cry mercy, and to beg pardon at the hands of the good fathers, as well of the absent as of such as are present. Whereupon we will take instrument formally and authentically extended, to the end he be not, after his decease, declared an heretic, and condemned, as were the hobgoblins of the provost’s wife of Orleans, to the undergoing of such punishments, pains, and tortures as are due to and inflicted on those that inhabit the horrid cells of the infernal regions; and withal incline, instigate, and persuade him to bequeath and leave in legacy (by way of an amends and satisfaction for the outrage and injury done to those good religious fathers throughout all the convents, cloisters, and monasteries of this province), many bribes, a great deal of mass-singing, store of obits, and that sempiternally, on the anniversary day of his decease, every one of them all be furnished with a quintuple allowance, and that the great borachio replenished with the best liquor trudge apace along the tables, as well of the young duckling monkitoes, lay brothers, and lowermost degree of the abbey lubbards, as of the learned priests and reverend clerks,— the very meanest of the novices and mitiants unto the order being equally admitted to the benefit of those funerary and obsequial festivals with the aged rectors and professed fathers. This is the surest ordinary means whereby from God he may obtain forgiveness. Ho, ho, I am quite mistaken; I digress from the purpose, and fly out of my discourse, as if my spirits were a-wool-gathering. The devil take me, if I go thither! Virtue God! The chamber is already full of devils. O what a swinging, thwacking noise is now amongst them! O the terrible coil that they keep! Hearken, do you not hear the rustling, thumping bustle of their strokes and blows, as they scuffle with one another, like true devils indeed, who shall gulp up the Raminagrobis soul, and be the first bringer of it, whilst it is hot, to Monsieur Lucifer? Beware, and get you hence! for my part, I will not go thither. The devil roast me if I go! Who knows but that these hungry mad devils may in the haste of their rage and fury of their impatience take a qui for a quo, and instead of Raminagrobis snatch up poor Panurge frank and free? Though formerly, when I was deep in debt, they always failed. Get you hence! I will not go thither. Before God, the very bare apprehension thereof is like to kill me. To be in a place where there are greedy, famished, and hunger-starved devils; amongst factious devils — amidst trading and trafficking devils — O the Lord preserve me! Get you hence! I dare pawn my credit on it, that no Jacobin, Cordelier, Carmelite, Capuchin, Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment. The wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter will and testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned, to his own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be so snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true religion? Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite out of his chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest need of the aid, suffrage, and assistance of their devout prayers and holy admonitions? Why did not he by testament leave them, at least, some jolly lumps and cantles of substantial meat, a parcel of cheek-puffing victuals, and a little belly-timber and provision for the guts of these poor folks, who have nothing but their life in this world? Let him go thither who will, the devil take me if I go; for, if I should, the devil would not fail to snatch me up. Cancro. Ho, the pox! Get you hence, Friar John! Art thou content that thirty thousand wainload of devils should get away with thee at this same very instant? If thou be, at my request do these three things. First, give me thy purse; for besides that thy money is marked with crosses, and the cross is an enemy to charms, the same may befall to thee which not long ago happened to John Dodin, collector of the excise of Coudray, at the ford of Vede, when the soldiers broke the planks. This moneyed fellow, meeting at the very brink of the bank of the ford with Friar Adam Crankcod, a Franciscan observantin of Mirebeau, promised him a new frock, provided that in the transporting of him over the water he would bear him upon his neck and shoulders, after the manner of carrying dead goats; for he was a lusty, strong-limbed, sturdy rogue. The condition being agreed upon, Friar Crankcod trusseth himself up to his very ballocks, and layeth upon his back, like a fair little Saint Christopher, the load of the said supplicant Dodin, and so carried him gaily and with a good will, as Aeneas bore his father Anchises through the conflagration of Troy, singing in the meanwhile a pretty Ave Maris Stella. When they were in the very deepest place of all the ford, a little above the master-wheel of the water-mill, he asked if he had any coin about him. Yes, quoth Dodin, a whole bagful; and that he needed not to mistrust his ability in the performance of the promise which he had made unto him concerning a new frock. How! quoth Friar Crankcod, thou knowest well enough that by the express rules, canons, and injunctions of our order we are forbidden to carry on us any kind of money. Thou art truly unhappy, for having made me in this point to commit a heinous trespass. Why didst thou not leave thy purse with the miller? Without fail thou shalt presently receive thy reward for it; and if ever hereafter I may but lay hold upon thee within the limits of our chancel at Mirebeau, thou shalt have the Miserere even to the Vitulos. With this, suddenly discharging himself of his burden, he throws me down your Dodin headlong. Take example by this Dodin, my dear friend Friar John, to the ............