“Rider on a broom handle!” cried another.
“What a fine tragic grimace,” howled a third, “and who would make him Pope of the Fools if to-day were yesterday?”
“’Tis well,” struck in an old woman. “This is the grimace of the pillory. When shall we have that of the gibbet?”
“When will you be coiffed with your big bell a hundred feet under ground, cursed bellringer?”
“But ’tis the devil who rings the Angelus!”
“Oh! the deaf man! the one-eyed creature! the hunch-back! the monster!”
“A face to make a woman miscarry better than all the drugs and medicines!”
And the two scholars, Jehan du Moulin, and Robin Poussepain, sang at the top of their lungs, the ancient refrain,—
“Une hart
Pour le pendard!
Un fagot
Pour le magot!”[33]
A thousand other insults rained down upon him, and hoots and imprecations, and laughter, and now and then, stones.