Now when this good company had assembled at Serrance and told each other
their misadventures, the waters on inquiry seemed to be out more widely
and more dangerously than before, so that it was impossible to think of
going farther for the time. They deliberated accordingly how they should
employ themselves, and, after allowing, on the proposal of Oisille, an
ample space for sacred exercises, they resolved that every day, after
dinner and an interval, they should assemble in a meadow on the bank of
the Gave at midday and tell stories. The device is carried out with
such success that the monks steal behind the hedges to hear them, and an
occasional postponement of vespers takes place. Simontault begins, and
the system of tale-telling goes round on the usual plan of each speaker
naming him or her who shall follow. It should be observed that no
general subject is, as in the _Decameron_, prescribed to the speakers
of each day, though, as a matter of course, one subject often suggests
another of not dissimilar kind.
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