“How! how! man with the boar-spear?” asked the Bailiff, his teeth chattering as he spoke. “Anyway I trust he has not his boar-spear with him now!” And he ran behind his wife for protection.
“No, no, do not be alarmed,” said the Lord of Vez, “even if he has got it with him, I promise you it shall not stay long in his hands. So, master poacher,” he went on, addressing himself to Thibault, “you are not content to hunt the game belonging to his Highness the Duke of Orleans, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets, but you must come and make excursions in the open and poach on the territory of my friend Maître Magloire?”
“A poacher! do you say?” exclaimed the Bailiff. “Is not Monsieur Thibault a landowner, the proprietor of farms, living in his country house on the income from his estate of a hundred acres?”
“What, he?” said the Baron, bursting into a loud guffaw, “so he made you believe all that stuff, did he? the rascal has got a clever tongue. He! a landowner! that poor starveling! why, the only property he possesses is what my stable-boys wear on their feet—the wooden shoes he gets his living by making.”
Madame Suzanne, on hearing Thibault thus classified, made a gesture of scorn and contempt, while Maître Magloire drew back a step, while the colour mounted to his face. Not that the good little man was proud, but he hated all kinds of deceit; it was not because he had clinked glasses with a shoe-maker that he turned red, but because he had drunk in company with a liar and a traitor.
During this avalanche of abuse Thibault had stood immovable with his arms folded and a smile on his lips. He had no fear but that when his turn came to speak, he would be able to take an easy revenge. And the moment to speak seemed now to have come. In a light, bantering tone of voice—which showed that he was gradually accustoming himself to conversing with people of a superior rank to his own—he then exclaimed; “By the Devil and his horns! as you yourself remarked a little while ago, you can tell tales of other people, my lord, without much compunction, and I fancy if everyone followed your example, I should not be at such a loss what to say, as I choose to appear!”
The lord of Vez, perfectly aware, as was the bailiff’s wife, of the menace conveyed in these words, answered by looking Thibault up and down with eyes that were starting with anger.
“Oh!” said Madame Magloire, somewhat imprudently, “you will see, he is going to invent some scandalous tale about me.”
“Have no fear, Madame,” replied Thibault, who had quite recovered his self-possession, “you have left me nothing to invent on that score.”
“Oh! the vile wretch!” she cried, “you see, I was right; he has got some malicious slander to report about me; he is determined to revenge himself because I would not return his sheep’s-eyes, to punish me because I was not willing to warn my husband that he was paying court to me.” During this speech of Madame Suzanne’s the lord of Vez had picked up his sword and advanced threateningly towards Thibault. But the Bailiff threw himself between them, and held back the Baron’s arm. It was fortunate for Thibault that he did so, for the latter did not move an inch to avoid the blow, evidently prepared at the last moment to utter some terrible wish which would avert the danger from him; but the Bailiff interposing, Thibault had no need to resort to this means of help.