" So Master
Priest, being ready for action, doffed the cloak and handed it to her.
And she, having put it in a safe place, said to him:--"Now, Sir, we will
away to the hut; there is never a soul goes there;" and so they did. And
there Master Priest, giving her many a mighty buss and straining her to
his sacred person, solaced himself with her no little while.
Which done, he hied him away in his cassock, as if he were come from
officiating at a wedding; but, when he was back in his holy quarters, he
bethought him that not all the candles that he received by way of
offering in the course of an entire year would amount to the half of five
pounds, and saw that he had made a bad bargain, and repented him that he
had left the cloak in pledge, and cast about how he might recover it
without paying anything. And as he did not lack cunning, he hit upon an
excellent expedient, by which he compassed his end. So on the morrow,
being a saint's day, he sent a neighbour's lad to Monna Belcolore with a
request that she would be so good as to lend him her stone mortar, for
that Binguccio dal Poggio and Nuto Buglietti were to breakfast with him
that morning, and he therefore wished to make a sauce. Belcolore having
sent the mortar, the priest, about breakfast time, reckoning that
Bentivegna del Mazzo and Belcolore would be at their meal, called his
clerk, and said to him:--"Take the mortar back to Belcolore, and
say:--'My master thanks you very kindly, and bids you return the cloak
that the lad left with you in pledge.
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