"Shall we enter the town, or avoid it by riding over the mead?" said the plaisant.
"What danger would there be in going on?" she asked. "Whom might we meet?"
Thoughtfully he regarded the shining towers of the royal residence. "No one, I think," he at length replied, and they went on.
Around the town ran a great wall, with watch-towers and a deep moat, but no person questioned their right to the freedom of the place; a sleepy soldier at the gate merely glancing indifferently at them as they passed beneath the heavy archway. Gabled houses, with a tendency to incline from the perpendicular, overlooked the winding street; dull, round panes of glass stared at them, fraught with mystery and the possibility of spying eyes behind; but the thoroughfare in that vicinity appeared deserted, save for an old woman seated in a doorway. Before this grandam, whose lack-luster eyes were fastened steadfastly before her, the fool paused and asked the direction of the inn.
"Follow your nose, if nature gave you a straight one," cried a jeering voice from the other side of the thoroughfare. "If it be crooked, a blind man and a dog were a better guide."
The speaker, a squat, misshapen figure, had emerged from a passage turning into the street, and now stood, twirling a fool's head on a stick and gazing impudently at the new-comers. The crone whom the plaisant had addressed remained motionless as a statue.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the oddity who had volunteered this malapert response to the jester's inquiry, "yonder sign-post"—pointing to the aged dame—"has lost its fingers—or rather its ears. Better trust to your nose."
"Triboulet!" exclaimed Jacqueline.
"Is it you, lady-bird?" said the surprised dwarf, recognizing in turn the maid. "And with the plaisant," staring hard at the fool. Then a cunning look gradually replaced the wonder depicted on his features. "You are fleeing from the court; I, toward it," he remarked, jocosely.
"What mean you, fool?" demanded the horseman, sternly.