“Boy! Keep your tongue civil to a gentleman, you sticker of pigs. If my horse trod on your toe it was because he could not abide the villainous reek of your blouse.”
There was an immediate stir among the crowd. All the gossips were agog, and a pavement of grinning faces seemed turned to Bertrand on his sorry nag. He became the centre of interest for the moment. The butcher had a dozen friends about him, and they were soon wagging their tongues, much to Bertrand’s discomfort.
“Why, look ye, John, the lad’s stolen his master’s old surcoat. I’ll warrant his hose are patched. How much did you give for that noble horse, boy?”
“Tell you, neighbor, he’s stolen the miller’s nag.”
“And pulled off its tail—for a disguise!”
“The skin is rather a tight fit, Stephen. D’ye feed him on saffron, most noble baron?”
“Baron forsooth,” said a fat woman with a red kerchief tied over her black hair. “Why, it is one of the Sieur de Rohan’s grooms. Look at his legs, sirs; they are as round as though they taught him to straddle a cask when he was a baby.”
Bertrand, white with fury, glared from one to another as they laughed and jeered at him. He could not fight the whole crowd, much less the women, who were more malicious than the men. Ridicule is not an easy yoke to be borne by the shoulders of youth, and more so when the victim has learned to hate his own grotesqueness with the sensitive fierceness of a proud nature. Bertrand ground his teeth, and fumbled with the dagger that hung at his girdle, tempted to let blood in answer to their insolence.
The whole squabble had been overheard by the gentry in the gallery above. Olivier, who had taken a peep over the balustrading, turned with a grin to his mother, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Bertrand—of course,” he said.