"With thee, Lord Prior, if thou talkest thus!" rejoined Bothwell, adjusting his mantle, angrily.
"Vrai Dieu! chevaliers," said the Frenchman; "after so happy a night, don't quarrel, I pray you."
"I would give a score of bright bonnet-pieces to meet a few of Moray's or Morton's swashbucklers coming down the street just now! I am in the right mood for a fray," said Black Hob. "Suppose we ring the Tron bell, and shout fire, sack, and the English!"
"Or break into the house of some rascally bourgeoise, and carry off his pretty wife," said the Marquis d'Elboeuff. "Oh, ventre bleu! de Brissac, de Vendome, and I, have played that prank many a night among the Hugonets in the Rue de Marmousets, and the dear rogues in the Rue de Glatigy"——
"At Paris, thou meanest," said Bothwell; "but our wooden-headed burghers set a value upon their conjugal ware different from your countrymen. The price French, is by francs and livres; the price Scottish, blows and steel blades. One might as well venture into a wasps' nest."
"Nom d'un Pape! Bothwell is growing tame," retorted the Marquis. "I knew that being once regularly wedded would spoil him."
"Once!" laughed Ormiston. "I warrant him"——
"Peace, gomeral!" thundered the Earl, placing his gauntleted hand on Hob's mouth. "What wert thou about to say, i' the devil's name?"
"Only that I would wish to show some of these fanatical Protestants that, being doubly damned, they have no right to keep their wives and daughters, or handmaidens, all to themselves."
"Tete Dieu!" cried d'Elboeuff, brandishing his rapier; "ah, the selfish Hugonets!—we must teach them the new law. Who will follow me? for Bothwell seemeth white-livered."