I held the dagger on high.
“Do you see this?” I called. “I am going to keep it until I find the man to whom it belongs.”
His answer sent the chills down my spine.
“Fine!” he shouted. “Take it to the Abbot of Chalonnes!”
CHAPTER IX
A SOLITARY HOUSE IN THE WOODS
The rest of that day passed pleasantly enough. To be sure, there were wayfarers whom I met. I remember most distinctly a few scattered soldiers with heavy beards who talked deep and boastingly in their throats. Then there came a barber with a satchel in his hand. He had a white curled wig on his head and a comb tucked jauntily in the side of it over his ear. No doubt he was going the rounds among his customers, the gentry of the neighborhood. By the mincing way in which he walked, the fancy lace upon his sleeves and collar, together with the display of a red waistcoat and a pair of polished silver-buckled shoes he must have thought himself equal to any doctor of Physic of the great university of Bologna.
He doffed his cap to me with some show of delicacy. He began to ask me if any great houses lay in the direction from which I had come, where he could earn a handful of groats. He told me that if there were any sick in the neighborhood, he could make them well again by the skill he had in cupping and leeching. I knew that barbers had the reputation as idle gossips, so I answered as evasively as I could. Then, when he saw that he was strumming on the wrong string, he grew bolder and more direct. He said flatly that I needed a little care myself. He invited me down from the horse. He assured me that, if I would sit on a stone on the side of the road for the space of half an hour, he would make a new man of me by the application of his art.
But my experience with the scrivener had been enough. I knew that it was best to deal with this new nuisance as deftly as I might. I first said that he looked the master of his trade in every way. At which he puffed up like a pigeon and seemed highly flattered. Then I slowly let him know that my stock of money was very low, that I could hardly reckon on a resting place for the night (which of course was true) and that I was cautioned to be careful in the expenditure of every single coin.
I might have gone further. But when my lack of money became known to him, he dropped his smile and shot a look at me that had poison in it. He picked up his satchel, grumbling and growling under his breath, and with a remark about beggars riding on horseback, quickly strode away.