"Be a little quiet, Therese."
"Pay the boy and get rid of him; we want no spies here."
Pale as death, Gilbert sprang toward the door, but Jacques stopped him, saying with some firmness:
"This is not a messenger-boy or a spy. He is a guest whom I bring home."
"A guest?" and the hag let her hands drop along her hips. "This is the last straw."
up, Therese," said the host, still kindly, but showing more will; "I am warm, and we are hungry."
The vixen's grumbling diminished in loudness. She drew fire with flint and steel, while Gilbert stood still by the sill which he regretted he had crossed. Jacques perceived what he suffered, and begged him to come forward.
Gilbert saw the hag's yellow and morose face by the first glimmer of the thin candle stuck in a brass candlestick. It inspired him with dislike. On her part the virago was far from liking the pale, fine countenance, circumspect silence and rigidity of the youth.
"I do not wonder at your being heated and hungry," she growled. "It must be tiresome to go browsing in the woods, and it is awful hard work to stoop from time to time to pick up a root. For I suppose this person gathers leaves and buds, too, for herb-collecting is the trade for those who do not any work."