"Ma foi, life must have grown wearisome to him.

Secure the woman, Jean." Caron stood before him, pale in his impotent rage, which was directed as much against the peasants who had fled as against the nobles who approached.

Had these clods but stood there, and defended themselves and their manhood with sticks and stones and such weapons as came to their hands, they might have taken pride in being trampled beneath the hoofs of the Seigneurie.

Thus, at least, might they have proved themselves men.

But to fly thus--some fifty of them from the approach of less than a score--was to confess unworthiness of a better fate than that of which their seigneurs rendered themselves the instruments.
Himself he could do no more than the single shot in his pistol would allow.