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Wherefore Rinaldo,
giving thanks to God and St. Julian, mounted his horse, and returned home
safe and sound, and on the morrow the three robbers kicked heels in the
wind.


NOVEL III.

--
Three young men squander their substance and are reduced to poverty. Their
nephew, returning home a desperate man, falls in with an abbot, in whom he
discovers the daughter of the King of England. She marries him, and he
retrieves the losses and reestablishes the fortune of his uncles.
--

The ladies marvelled to hear the adventures of Rinaldo d'Asti, praised his
devotion, and gave thanks to God and St. Julian for the succour lent him in
his extreme need. Nor, though the verdict was hardly outspoken, was the lady
deemed unwise to take the boon which God had sent her. So they tittered and
talked of her night of delight, while Pampinea, being seated by Filostrato,
and surmising that her turn would, as it did, come next, was lost in
meditation on what she was to say. Roused from her reverie by the word of
the queen, she put on a cheerful courage, and thus began:--

Noble ladies, discourse as we may of Fortune's handiwork, much still remains
to be said if we but scan events aright, nor need we marvel thereat, if we
but duly consider that all matters, which we foolishly call our own, are in
her hands and therefore subject, at her inscrutable will, to every variety
of chance and change without any order therein by us discernible. Which is
indeed signally manifest everywhere and all day long; yet, as 'tis our
queen's will that we speak thereof, perhaps 'twill not be unprofitable to
you, if, notwithstanding it has been the theme of some of the foregoing
stories, I add to them another, which, I believe, should give you pleasure.

There was formerly in our city a knight, by name Messer Tedaldo, of the
Lamberti, according to some, or, as others say, of the Agolanti family,
perhaps for no better reason than that the occupation of his sons was
similar to that which always was and is the occupation of the Agolanti.
However, without professing to determine which of the two houses he belonged
to, I say, that he was in his day a very wealthy knight, and had three sons,
the eldest being by name Lamberto, the second Tedaldo, and the third
Agolante. Fine, spirited young men were they all, though the eldest was not
yet eighteen years old when their father, Messer Tedaldo, died very rich,
leaving to them as his lawful heirs the whole of his property both movable
and immovable. Finding themselves thus possessed of great wealth, both in
money and in lands and chattels, they fell to spending without stint or
restraint, indulging their every desire, maintaining a great establishment,
and a large and well-filled stable, besides dogs and hawks, keeping ever
open house, scattering largesses, jousting, and, not content with these and
the like pastimes proper to their condition, indulging every appetite
natural to their youth. They had not long followed this course of life

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