"No," coolly answered Anselm, "that seignioral right has been abolished since the city of Laon is a free Commune. Never forget the difference between the present and the past. The seignioral rights are abolished."
"I am reminded of that but too often!" answered the bishop with concentrated vexation. "However that may be, Gerhard, obey my orders and take the horse to the stable."
"Seigneur," said Thiegaud, "the owner is waiting, I tell you. He must have the money, a hundred and twenty silver sous, or the animal back."
"He shall not have the horse!" answered the bishop angrily striking the ground. "If the farmer dares to grumble, tell him to send me his master. We shall see whether he will have the audacity to appear on such an errand before his bishop."
"He will surely have the audacity, seigneur bishop," replied Thiegaud. "The owner of the horse is Colombaik the Tanner, a communier of Laon and son of Fergan, master quarryman of the mill hill. I know these people. I notify you that the father and son are of those ... who dare ... anything."
"Blood of Christ! and devil's horns! we have had words enough!" cried out the bishop. "Gerhard, take the stallion to the stables!"
The equerry obeyed, and the archdeacon was on the point of remonstrating with Gaudry on the injustice and danger of his conduct, when, hearing a great noise in the yards contiguous to the green, the bishop, already in a bad humor and yielding to the passion of his temperament, rushed out of the green, without taking time to put on his robe again and leaving it behind on a bench. He had hardly crossed the first yard, followed by the equerry, who led the horse, and by Thiegaud, who in his perversity was smiling at this latest iniquity of his master, when he saw a crowd of the domestics of his household coming towards him. They were all yelling and gesticulating violently, and surrounded Black John, whose gigantic stature rose above them by the full length of his head. No less excited than his fellows, Black John also yelled and gesticulated, foaming at the mouth with rage and brandishing his Saracen dagger.
"What means this hurly?" inquired the bishop of Laon stepping before the advancing crowd. "Why do you scream in that way?"
Several voices answered at once: "We are crying out against the bourgeois of Laon! The dogs of the communiers!"
"What has happened? Answer quick!"