Ribau. I say, you are free to return.
La Gloire. Look ye, my lord! I am son to brave old Eustache de St. Pierre; as tough a citizen as any in all Calais: I was carried into your lordship's father's family (your lordship being then but just born) at six days old; a mere whelp, as a body may say. According to puppy reckoning, my lord, I was with you three days before I could see. I have followed you through life, frisking and trotting after your lordship ever since: and, if you think me, now, mongrel enough to turn tail, and leave my master in a scrape, why, 'twere kinder e'en to hang me up at the next tree, than cut me through the heart with your suspicions.
Ribau. No, La Gloire,—I——
La Gloire. No, my lord! 'tis fear for you makes me bold to speak. To see you running your head through stone walls for a woman—and a woman who, though she be an angel, has (saving your presence) played you but a scurvy sort of a jade's trick; and——
Ribau. 'Sdeath, villain! how dare your slanderous tongue to—but 'tis plain—'tis for thy own wretched sake thou art thus anxious—drivelling coward!
La Gloire. Coward!—Cow——Diable!—a French soldier, who has the honour to carry arms under his christian majesty, Philip the Sixth, King of France, called coward! Sacre bleu! Have I already served in three campaigns, and been thumped, and bobbed about, by the English, to be called coward at last! Oh, that any but my commander had said it!
Ribau. Well, well, La Gloire, I may have been hasty: I——
La Gloire. Oh, my lord!—it—'tis no matter. But, haply, you'd like to be convinced of the courage of your company; and if such a thing as raising the enemy's camp can clear a man's character, I can do it as soon as——
[Raising his Voice.
Ribau. 'Sdeath, blockhead! we shall be discovered.