“Not one syllable,” answered Lord Crawford, “I am too much a friend of your Highness to permit such an act of folly.”
Then addressing Quentin, he added, “You, young man, have done your duty. Go on to obey the charge with which you are intrusted.”
“Under favour, my Lord,” said Tristan, with his usual brutality of manner, “the youth must find another guide. I cannot do without Petit Andre, when there is so like to be business on hand for him.”
“The young man,” said Petit Andre, now coming forward, “has only to keep the path which lies straight before him, and it will conduct him to a place where he will find the man who is to act as his guide.
“I would not for a thousand ducats be absent from my Chief this day I have hanged knights and esquires many a one, and wealthy Echevins [during the Middle Ages royal officers possessing a large measure of power in local administration], and burgomasters to boot—even counts and marquises have tasted of my handiwork but, a-humph”—he looked at the Duke, as if to intimate that he would have filled up the blank with “a Prince of the Blood!”
“Ho, ho, ho! Petit Andre, thou wilt be read of in Chronicle!”
“Do you permit your ruffians to hold such language in such a presence?” said Crawford, looking sternly to Tristan.
“Why do you not correct him yourself, my Lord?” said Tristan, sullenly.
“Because thy hand is the only one in this company that can beat him without being degraded by such an action.”
“Then rule your own men, my Lord, and I will be answerable for mine,” said the Provost Marshal.