"And yet," replied the aged skipper, "only this forenoon, you were ordering your knights to break their lances upon our backs!"
Rothbert bit his lips, puckered his brow, and answered with embarrassment:
"You must excuse an accidental outburst of excitement."
"Your present glorifications contrast singularly with the insolent words that you bestowed upon me this forenoon."
"Fortunat," rejoined the count, turning to the abbot and with difficulty suppressing his anger: "This good fellow loves to banter. I think, however, he should choose his time better. We must run to arms, not joke, when these accursed Northmans threaten our peace."
"Well! well! They are not so deserving of curses, after all," remarked Eidiol, smiling with nonchalance. "Thanks to these very Northmans, you are now treating me with civility and courting my friendship. The noble is flattering the villein!"
"Quit your raillery, old man!" commanded Rothbert, relapsing, despite himself, into his wonted haughty and violent temper.
"Seigneur count, I am speaking to the point because I am in a hurry to embrace my wife and daughter. It is now about twenty-seven years ago, in the year 885, when the Northmans, under the lead of Hastain, to-day master and Seigneur of the country of Chartres, invaded the country and laid siege to Paris for the fifth or sixth time."
"On that occasion, at least, and it was the only time, the plebs of Paris, under the command of Eudes, my brother, offered a brave resistance, since when the pirates have no longer ravaged the city. It will be so again now. I swear it to God, will ye, nill ye, villeins, you shall be marched to the ramparts to give battle!"
"Until that year of which you speak, Paris had never offered any resistance to the pirates. The reason was simple. The people, the guilds and the artisans did not care to undertake the defence—"