“If I do not take order with that boy, my name is not Eric,” muttered the Baron.
“What must he not have made our poor child suffer!” returned Fru Astrida, “but the little one moves my heart. How small and weakly he is, but it is worth anything to see our little Duke so tender to him.”
“He is too brave not to be gentle,” said Osmond; and, indeed, the high-spirited, impetuous boy was as soft and kind as a maiden, with that feeble, timid child. He coaxed him to eat, consoled him, and, instead of laughing at his fears, kept between him and the great bloodhound Hardigras, and drove it off when it came too near.
“Take that dog away,” said Lothaire, imperiously. No one moved to obey him, and the dog, in seeking for scraps, again came towards him.
“Take it away,” he repeated, and struck it with his foot. The dog growled, and Richard started up in indignation.
“Prince Lothaire,” he said, “I care not what else you do, but my dogs and my people you shall not maltreat.”
“I tell you I am Prince! I do what I will! Ha! who laughs there?” cried the passionate boy, stamping on the floor.
“It is not so easy for French Princes to scourge free-born Normans here,” said the rough voice of Walter the huntsman: “there is a reckoning for the stripe my Lord Duke bore for me.”
“Hush, hush, Walter,” began Richard; but Lothaire had caught up a footstool, and was aiming it at the huntsman, when his arm was caught.
Osmond, who knew him well enough to be prepared for such outbreaks, held him fast by both hands, in spite of his passionate screams and struggles, which were like those of one frantic.