“We have to stay here to protect our houses.”
“The best way to protect your own houses is to go out and fight for other people’s; don’t you see that when the brigands have burnt down the rest of the houses, they will take yours? Your time will come, never fear!”
“Master Racquin told us that the best thing we could do was to keep quiet till order was re-established by the Duke of Nevers.”
“A lot of water will run under the bridges before the Duke leaves his own business to look after ours; we shall all be burned to a cinder by that time. Come, come! We ought to fight for our skin, if it is worth anything.”
They kept on for some time making objections, chirping like birds from window to window, declaring that the enemy was numerous and powerful, and that we were weak and had no one to lead us; till I lost all patience, and swore that I would not stand there in the street any longer gaping at them.
“Do you think I am here to serenade you?” I cried. “Let the women stay up there, to take care of your houses, they are quite equal to that. But if there are any men among you, come down and fight, or, by the God that made me, I will set fire to you myself with my own hands!”
At last one braver than the rest stuck his nose out of the door, half laughing, and then they all came out one after the other, and stood round me in a circle.
“Are you quite cured of the plague?”
“As right as a trivet.”
“And has no one attacked you?”