THE CANTERBURY TALES
buy better clothes, if his deed accord with thy tale of him? Tell me that ; and that I beseech thee."
"Why?" quoth this yeoman, "wherefore ask me? So help me God, he shall never prosper. (But I will not avow what I say and therefore, I beseech you, keep it secret.) I believe in faith, he is too wise. That which is overdone will not come out aright; as clerks say, it is a vice. Wherefore in that I hold him blind and foolish. For when a man hath a wit over-great, full oft it happeth him to misuse it. So doth my lord, and that grieveth me much. God amend it; I can say no more to you."
"No matter of that, good yeoman," our host said, "sith thou wotst of the cunning of thy lord, I pray thee heartily tell what he doth, sith he is so sly and crafty. Where dwell ye, if it may be told?"
"In the suburbs of a town," quoth he, "lurking in corners and blind lanes, where robbers and thieves hold by nature their secret fearful dwelling, as they that dare not show their presence ; even so we fare, if I shall say sooth to thee."
"Now let me talk to thee yet," quoth our host; "wherefore art thou so discoloured of thy face?"
"Peter!" quoth he, "God give it sorrow, I am so used to blow in the fire, that I ween it hath changed my colour. I am not wont to peer into any mirror, but to toil sore and learn to multiply. We become mazed and pore ever into the fire, yet for all that we fail of our hopes for we lack ever our result. We delude many folk and borrow gold, be it a pound, or two, or ten, or twelve, or many sums larger, and make them ween at the least that of one pound we can make two. Yet it is false, but we have aye faith that we may do it, and we grope after it. But
that knowledge is so far beyond us, we may not overtake it, though
212
