They made a rush across the grass, waving their caps and cutting grotesque capers.
“Hopart! Guicheaux!”
“The very dogs, messire.”
“God save me, but this is gallant!”
Bertrand’s face beamed like a great boy’s as he rolled out of the saddle almost into Guicheaux’s arms. Hopart and his brother bully sprang at him like a couple of barking and delirious dogs. So rough and strenuous were their methods of showing joy that a stranger might have taken them for a couple of footpads in the act of robbing a gentleman of his purse.
“Captain, captain, I could hug the heart out of you.”
“Goodman, Guicheaux. Give me a grip.”
“A crack of the knuckle-bones. Sir, but you are still strong in the fist.”
In the midst of all this loving turbulence the gyrfalcon on Bertrand’s wrist took to fluttering and screeching by way of protest, ruffled in feathers as well as temper. Bertrand disentangled himself, laughing and not a little out of breath.
“Captain, we have been beating all the country this side of Loudeac.”