While this tragic scene was enacting, another body of the people of Laon, led by Ancel Quatre-Mains and his sprightly wife, invaded the episcopal palace from another side. Fergan was running to meet them the moment he saw them enter the green, when he caught sight of Archdeacon Anselm, who, having so far kept aloof from the theater of the conflict, was now hastening to the spot, informed of the bishop's fate by one of his domestics. The archdeacon succeeded in inducing the communiers to refrain from submitting the remains of their enemy to the idle and last disgrace contemplated by them. Helped by two servants, the worthy priest of Christ was carrying the corpse of the bishop, when he noticed Fergan, and said to him in a voice deeply moved, with the tears running down his cheeks: "I wish to bury the body of this unfortunate man, and to pray for him. My sad forecasts have been verified. Only yesterday, warning him in the midst of his braggart and fatal illusion of security, I expressed the hope that I may not soon have to pray over his grave. Oh, Fergan, civil war is a terrible scourge!"
"A curse upon those who provoke these execrable strifes, that carry mourning into the camp of both the vanquishers and the vanquished!" answered the quarryman, and leaving the archdeacon to fulfil his pious office, he proceeded to join Quatre-Mains, who commanded the other troop of the invaders.
The worthy Councilman, ever hampered and incommoded by his military equipment, had rid himself of it in the moment of battle. Replacing his iron casque with a woolen cap and keeping on his leather jerkin only, with his coat sleeves rolled back, as he was wont when kneading his dough, he had armed himself with the poker of his oven, a long and heavy iron implement, bent at one end. His stout-hearted little wife Simonne, her cheeks in a glow and her eyes aflame, carried in her skirt a bundle of lint and bandages ready for use, together with a wicker-covered flask, containing a decoction, pronounced marvelous by her for checking the flow of blood. Joy and the excitement of triumph radiated from the charming features of the baker's wife. At the sight of Fergan, however, whose face was clotted with the blood of the wound he had received on his head, she cried out sadly: "Neighbor Fergan, you are wounded! Let me tend you, the fight is over; be not alarmed about your son; we have just seen him at his post on the ramparts; he is safe and sound, although there was a sharp encounter at that spot; sit down on this bench, I shall nurse you the same as I would have done Ancel, had he been wounded. Upon the faith of a Picardian woman, if he escaped being hurt, it was not his fault; he merited anew his surname of Quatre-Mains, the way he belabored the heads and backs of the episcopals."
Fergan accepted Simonne's offer and sat down upon a bench, while the young woman looked for the lint in her pockets. The baker himself stopped a few steps behind to gather the details of the capture of the bishop. He then approached his wife, and seeing her engaged upon Fergan, hastened his steps, asking with deep interest: "What, neighbor, wounded? Nothing serious?"
"I was struck with an axe on my casque," and raising his head which he had inclined to facilitate the nursing of Simonne, Fergan noticed the rather unmilitary accoutrement of his friend: "Why did you take off your armor in the middle of the fight?"
"Upon my faith, the casque kept dropping on my nose, the corselet took the breath from me, the sword encumbered my legs. Accordingly, when the fight started, I made myself comfortable, just as I do when I am kneading dough. I rolled up my sleeves, and instead of that devil of a sword, which I cannot handle, I armed myself with my iron poker, the use of which is familiar to me."
"But what could you do with a poker? It is a rather singular implement of war."
"What could he do with it?" put in Simonne, saturating a bandage with the contents of the wicker-covered flask, and applying the same to the quarryman's wound. "Oh, Ancel is quick with his hands. If a nobleman on horseback came near, armed to the teeth, my husband grappled his throat with the hook of his long poker and then pulled with all his might; I helped when necessary. In almost every instance we unhorsed the knight, and throwing him to the ground he was at our mercy."
"After which," added the baker calmly, "and after beating my man with the hook of my poker, I dispatched him with the handle. I settled more than one of them. One does what he can!"
"Oh, neighbor!" Simonne proceeded with enthusiasm; "it was especially at the siege of the house of the knight of Haut-Pourcin that Ancel made a famous use of his poker. Several episcopals and their servants, entrenched upon a crenelated terrace, fired down upon us with cross-bows. They had killed or wounded so many communiers, that none dared come near the accursed house, and our people had retired to the end of the street. Presently, we saw the wicked knight of Haut-Pourcin, cross-bow in hand, leaning half over the battlement of the terrace, to see if there was any of ours that he could hit. At that instant—," but interrupting herself, Simonne said to her husband: "Tell your own story, Ancel; while I speak I cannot pay proper attention to the bandage of our neighbor."