“Oh! no,” said the gypsy.
There was in the intonation of that “Oh! no,” uttered after that “Oh! yes,” an ineffable something which wounded Fleur-de-Lys.
“You left me in your stead, my beauty,” pursued the captain, whose tongue was unloosed when speaking to a girl out of the street, “a crabbed knave, one-eyed and hunchbacked, the bishop’s bellringer, I believe. I have been told that by birth he is the bastard of an archdeacon and a devil. He has a pleasant name: he is called Quatre-Temps (Ember Days), Pâques-Fleuries (Palm Sunday), Mardi-Gras (Shrove Tuesday), I know not what! The name of some festival when the bells are pealed! So he took the liberty of carrying you off, as though you were made for beadles! ’Tis too much. What the devil did that screech-owl want with you? Hey, tell me!”
“I do not know,” she replied.
“The inconceivable impudence! A bellringer carrying off a wench, like a vicomte! a lout poaching on the game of gentlemen! that is a rare piece of assurance. However, he paid dearly for it. Master Pierrat Torterue is the harshest groom that ever curried a knave; and I can tell you, if it will be agreeable to you, that your bellringer’s hide got a thorough dressing at his hands.”
“Poor man!” said the gypsy, in whom these words revived the memory of the pillory.
The captain burst out laughing.
“Corne-de-bœuf! here’s pity as well placed as a feather in a pig’s tail! May I have as big a belly as a pope, if—”
He stopped short. “Pardon me, ladies; I believe that I was on the point of saying something foolish.”
“Fie, sir” said la Gaillefontaine.