They all laughed loud, except Jack Straw, that stooped and set his face close to the boy's face, but the boy did not blink. “Here 's no place for children,” Jack cried, drawing back baffled.
“For that reason do I take him hence,” Stephen explained.
Jack narrowed his eyes: “The boy hath a tongue in 's head, and stout legs; is 't for this cause that thou art received into the Fellowship, to play the nursemaid to lost brats? Thou bawdy waster, false faitour! What knowest thou of brotherhood, that hast not soiled thy fingers this day to serve thy fellows?”
“Nor I will not neither,” cried Stephen. And at this word the men drew yet more close and their faces were awry twixt anger and amaze.
“I say I will not,” he repeated, “if to serve my fellows is to burn and pillage other men's goods.”
“Pillage!” roared all they as with one throat. “We be not thieves!”
“Ye say so,” he answered, and then: “This cause is a righteous cause, and I will not hinder; but 't is not I have suffered at the hands of the noblesse; wherefore I will not wantonly overturn and lay waste. 'T is my part to play messenger.”
“'T is thy part to do whatsoever we bid thee,” snarled Jack Straw.
“I am not of thy ményé, Jack,” said Stephen.
“Nay, for only honest fellows are of my ményé,—thou art a traitor, a liar, a spy”—