“Hush! hush!” said Dirk, striking his fist upon the table with a blow that caused the glasses to ring, “this is no subject for word-chopping. Adrian, you would have been better with us than down below at that butchery, even though you were less safe,” he added, with meaning. “But I wish to run none into danger, and you are of an age to judge for yourself. I beg you, however, to spare us your light talk about scenes that we think dreadful, however interesting you may have found them.”
Adrian shrugged his shoulders and called to Martin to bring him some more meat. As the great man approached him he spread out his fine-drawn nostrils and sniffed.
“You smell, Martin,” he said, “and no wonder. Look, there is blood upon your jerkin. Have you been killing pigs and forgotten to change it?”
Martin’s round blue eyes flashed, then went pale and dead again.
“Yes, master,” he answered, in his thick voice, “I have been killing pigs. But your dress also smells of blood and fire; perhaps you went too near the stake.” At that moment, to put an end to the conversation, Dirk rose and said grace. Then he went out of the room accompanied by his wife and Foy, leaving Adrian to finish his meal alone, which he did reflectively and at leisure.
When he left the eating chamber Foy followed Martin across the courtyard to the walled-in stables, and up a ladder to the room where the serving man slept. It was a queer place, and filled with an extraordinary collection of odds and ends; the skins of birds, otters, and wolves; weapons of different makes, notably a very large two-handed sword, plain and old-fashioned, but of excellent steel; bits of harness and other things.
There was no bed in this room for the reason that Martin disdained a bed, a few skins upon the floor being all that he needed to lie on. Nor did he ask for much covering, since so hardy was he by nature, that except in the very bitterest weather his woollen vest was enough for him. Indeed, he had been known to sleep out in it when the frost was so sharp that he rose with his hair and beard covered with icicles.
Martin shut the door and lit three lanterns, which he hung to hooks upon the wall.
“Are you ready for a turn, master?” he asked.
Foy nodded as he answered, “I want to get the taste of it all out of my mouth, so don’t spare me. Lay on till I get angry, it will make me forget,” and taking a leathern jerkin off a peg he pulled it over his head.