Simonne stepped in the house of her neighbor with her habitual pertness. But her charming face, no longer smiling and happy as usual, was now expressive of lively indignation, and entering a few steps ahead of her husband, she cried out: "The insolent wretch! As true as Ancel is called Quatre-Mains, I would have wished, 'pon the word of a Picardian woman, that I had four hands to slap her face, noble dame though she be! The old hag, as ugly as she is wicked and quarrelsome!"
"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Fergan smiling, knowing well the nature of Simonne, "you, ordinarily so gay and full of laughter! You seem highly incensed, neighbor!"
"What has happened, Simonne? Who has excited your anger to such a pitch?" added Martine.
"Trifles," said the baker, shaking his head and answering the questioning looks of Fergan, Joan and Colombaik; "it is nothing, good neighbors."
"How so?... Nothing!" cried out Simonne, turning with a start to her husband. "Oh! According to you such insolence must pass unperceived!"
The baker again shook his head, and, profiting by the opportunity to be rid of his casque, that pressed him heavily, he placed it under his arm. "Oh! It is nothing!" proceeded Simonne, now addressing Fergan and Joan. "I take you for judges. You are wise and thoughtful people."
"And what are we two, Martine and I?" queried Colombaik, laughing merrily. "So, then, you discard us?"
"I do not take you for judges, neither you nor Martine, because you would be too much of my opinion," replied Simonne; "Master Fergan and his wife are not, as far as I know, suspected of being hot-heads! Let them decide whether I am angry at nothing," she said, shooting a fresh look of indignation at the baker, who, greatly incommoded by his long sword, had sat down, placing it across his knees after laying his casque on the floor. "This is what happened," Simonne proceeded: "Agreeable to the promise I yesterday made to Martine of coming for her this morning to assist at the inauguration of our belfry, Ancel and I left the house early. Going up Exchange street we passed before the window of the fortified house of Arnulf, a nobleman of Haut-Pourcin, as he styles himself."
"I know the seigneur of Haut-Pourcin," observed Colombaik; "he is one of the bitterest episcopals in town."
"And his wife is one of the most brazen she-devils that ever joined a caterwauling!" cried out Simonne. "Judge for yourselves, neighbors. She and her maid were standing at one of the lower windows when Ancel and I went by. 'Look at her,' she said in a loud voice to her maid, laughing obstreperously; 'look at the baker's wife, how she struts in new clothes with her petticoat of Lombard silk, silver belt and skirt bordered with marten fur! May God pardon me! To see such creatures daring to put on silk and rich furs like us noble ladies, instead of humbly keeping to a petticoat of linsey-woolsey and a skirt hemmed with cat's skin, the proper clothing for the base station in life of these villeins! What a pity! Fortunately her yellow dress is of the color of her pastry and her bannocks! It will serve them for ensign!'"