"What have you in mind, mother?"
"Can it be that you have not noticed that for some time back the knights, the city clergy, in short, all the folks of the party of the bishop, whom they call the episcopals, have been deporting themselves with a swaggering air towards the townsmen and artisans in the streets?"
"You are right, Joan," remarked Fergan pensively. "I have been struck, less, perhaps, by the swagger of the episcopals, than by the insolence of their menials. It is a grave symptom, an indication of their resentment."
"Good! A ridiculous rancor, and nothing else!" said Colombaik smiling disdainfully. "Those holy canons and their noble pursuivants do not forgive the bourgeois for being free like themselves, and for having, like themselves, and when they please, turrets to their houses—a pleasure that I have bestowed upon myself, thanks to the finest stones of your quarry, father. Thus, our tannery could now sustain a siege against those ill-tempered episcopals. Besides, I have contrived for Martine a pretty little alcove in one of the turrets, and her initials, cut by me in copper, glisten in the weather-vane from the top of our turrets, just as the initials of a lady of rank."
"It will, no doubt, be more than ever well to have a strong house," observed Fergan. "It is not the weather-vanes on our turrets, but thick walls that trouble the episcopals."
"They will have to become accustomed to our strong houses. If not, by heaven—"
"No passion, Colombaik," put in the benign Joan, again interrupting the impetuous young man. "Your father has made the same observation that I did; and since the retainers of the knights look provoking, their masters must be near becoming so themselves. This morning's ceremony will surely, for more reasons than one, attract a large number of episcopals along the line of the procession. For heaven's sake, my child, no rashness!"
"Do not alarm yourself, Joan," rejoined Fergan, "we are too conscious of our good rights and of the strength of the Commune, not to keep cool in sight of mere insolence. But prudence does not exclude firmness."
Hardly had the quarryman pronounced these words when the door flew open, and a young and attractive woman entered with a pert air. She was a brunette, sprightly and handsomely dressed, like the rich bourgeois that she was. An orange-colored silk petticoat was fastened to her exquisite waist with a silver belt; her skirt, made of fine Arras cloth and bordered with marten fur, hardly reached her knees; on her black hair, that shone like jet, she wore a bonnet, red like her stockings, which set off her well-shaped calves; finally, her feet were shod in smart shoes of shining Morocco leather. Simonne, that was her name, was the wife of Ancel Quatre-Mains, a master baker, renowned throughout the city of Laon and even the suburbs, for the excellence of his bread, his cream tarts, his honey cakes, his almond wafers and other dainties that were confectioned in his shop. He also drove the trade of flour merchant, and the Commune had chosen him one of its Councilmen. Ancel Quatre-Mains[E]—the name was due to his prodigious quickness in kneading the dough—presented a singular contrast to his wife,—as calm and thoughtful as she was pert and giddy-headed, as chary of words as she was loquacious, as corpulent as she was lithesome. His physiognomy betokened imperturbable good-nature, coupled in his instance with a lively sense of justice, a generous heart, and extraordinary skill at his trade.
Wishing to please his pretty wife, whom he loved as much as he was loved by her, the master baker had harnessed himself in war accoutrements. A large number of townsmen, until then deprived of the right to carry arms—a right exclusively reserved to the seigneurs, the knights and their pursuivants—found a pleasure and a triumph in such martial arrays. Ancel Quatre-Mains only slightly shared their taste; but in order to suit Simonne, who was greatly captivated by the military garb, he had put on a gobison, a species of strongly bolstered and thick leather corselet, that, not having been measured for him, pressed in his chest and caused his prominent stomach to protrude still more. On the other hand, his iron casque, much too large for him, kept falling over his eyes, an inconvenience that the worthy baker corrected from time to time by pushing his unlucky headgear to the back of his head. At times his legs also got entangled with the long sword that swung from a buff shoulder-belt, embroidered with red silk and silver thread by Simonne herself, who wished to imitate the tokens of approval bestowed by the noble ladies upon their gallant knights. Ancel had long been the friend of Fergan, who loved and esteemed him greatly. Simonne, brought up with Martine and slightly her senior, cherished her like a sister. Thanks to their close neighborhood, the two young women visited each other every day after the routine of their household and even trade duties had been attended to, because, if Martine helped Colombaik in several departments of his tannery, Simonne, who was no less industrious than lovable, leaving to Ancel and his two apprentices the care of preparing the bread, would confection with her own pretty hands, as white as the wheat flour that they handled, the delicious cakes that the townsmen and even the noble episcopals were so fond of.