ere, Pierre!" M. de Brie called to the head lackey, "here's a candidate for a hiding. This is a cub of that fellow Mar's. He reckoned wrong when he brought his insolence into this house. Lay on well, boys; make him howl."
Brie would have liked well enough, I fancy, to come along and see the fun, but he conceived that his duty lay in the salon. Pierre, the same who had conducted me to Mlle. de Montluc, now led the way into a long oak-panelled parlour. Opposite the entrance was a huge chimney carved with the arms of Lorraine; at one end a door led into a little oratory where tapers burned before the image of the Virgin; at the other, before the two narrow windows, stood a long table with writing-materials. Chests and cupboards nearly filled the walls. I took this to be a sort of council-room of my Lord Mayenne.
Pierre sent one of his men for a cane and to the other suggested that he should quench the Virgin's candles.
"For I don't see why this rascal should have the comfort of a light in there," he said. "As for Madonna Mary, she will not mind; she has a million others to see by."
I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it. But as I gathered myself for the rush he spoke to me low and cautiously:
"Now howl your loudest, lad; and I'll not lay on too hard."
My clinched fist dropped to my side.
"You never did me any harm," he muttered. "Howl till they think you half killed, and I'll manage."
I gaped at him, not knowing what to make of it. But this is the way of the world; if there is much cruelty in it, there is much kindness, too.
"Here's the cane, nom d'un chien!" Pierre exclaimed boisterously. "Give it here, Jean; there'll not be much of it left when I get through."