"Ah!" the old servant remarked more than once, as he surveyed with a jaundiced eye the crowded camp beyond the rivulet, "they are full of themselves! But I mind the day--it was when you entertained the Governors, my lord--when they'd have looked a few beside the servants we had to supper in the courtyard! A few they'd look. I'd sixty-two men, all men of their hands, and not naked gipsies like these, to my own table!"
Which was true; but Solomon forgot to add that it was the only table.
"Ay!" the Vicomte said, pleased, though he knew that Solomon was lying. "Times are changed."
"Since Coutras--devil take them!" Solomon rejoined, wagging his beard. "There were men then. 'Twas a word and a blow, and if we didn't run fast enough it was to the bilboes with us, and we smarted. Your lordship remembers. But now, Heaven help us," he continued with growing despondency as his eye alighted on des Ageaux, who had just appeared in the distance, "the men might be women! Might be women, and mealy-mouthed at that!"
The Vicomte laughed an elderly cackling laugh. "You didn't think, man, that the Villeneuves would come to this?" he said.
"Never! And would no wise ha' believed it!"
"Who were once masters of all from Barbesieux to Vlaye!"
"And many a mile further!" Solomon cried, leaping on the proffered hobby. "There were the twenty manors of Passirac"--he began to count on his hands. "And the farms of Perneuil, more than I have fingers and toes. And the twenty manors of Corde, and the great mill there--the five wind-mills of Passirac I don't think worth mentioning, though they would make many a younger son a portion. Then the Abbey lands of Vlaye, and the great mill there that took in toll as much as would keep a vicomte of these times, saving your lordship's presence. And then at Brenan----"
Bonne, listening idly, heard so much. Then the Abbess, who, unnoticed, had joined the group, touched her elbow, and muttered in her ear: "Do you see?"
"What?" Bonne asked innocently.