“Talk to me so, and my stirrup leathers shall make acquaintance with your sides,” said Taillebois.
“Keep them for your wife. Churl? Barbarian? There is not a man within this hall who is not a barbarian compared with him. Which of you touched the harp like him? Which of you, like him, could move all hearts with song? Which of you knows all tongues from Lapland to Provence? Which of you has been the joy of ladies’ bowers, the counsellor of earls and heroes, the rival of a mighty king? Which of you will compare yourself with him,—whom you dared not even strike, you and your robber crew, fairly in front, but, skulked round him till he fell pecked to death by you, as Lapland Skratlings peck to death the bear. Ten years ago he swept this hall of such as you, and hung their heads upon yon gable outside; and were he alive but one five minutes again, this hall would be right cleanly swept again! Give me his body,—or bear forever the name of cowards, and Torfrida’s curse.”
And she fixed her terrible eyes first on one, and then on another, calling them by name.
“Ivo Taillebois,—basest of all—”
“Take the witch’s accursed eyes off me!” and he covered his face with his hands. “I shall be overlooked,—planet struck. Hew the witch down! Take her away!”
“Hugh of Evermue,—the dead man’s daughter is yours, and the dead man’s lands. Are not these remembrances enough of him? Are you so fond of his memory that you need his corpse likewise?”
“Give it her! Give it her!” said he, hanging down his head like a rated cur.
“Ascelin of Lincoln, once Ascelin of Ghent,—there was a time when you would have done—what would you not?—for one glance of Torfrida’s eyes.—Stay. Do not deceive yourself, fair sir, Torfrida means to ask no favor of you, or of living man. But she commands you. Do the thing she bids, or with one glance of her eye she sends you childless to your grave.”
“Madam! Lady Torfrida! What is there I would not do for you? What have I done now, save avenge your great wrong?”
Torfrida made no answer, but fixed steadily on him eyes which widened every moment.