this stack, and now you will have to smother the flame, or pay for it. That is all, my friend. You have had fair warning. The rest is in your own hands.'

And with that I left him. He was a stupid man but a sly one too, and I doubted his sincerity, or I might have taken another way with him. In the end, doubtless, it would have been the same.

As I turned on my heel to go, the troop round the door raised a kind of hoot; and this pursued me as I went up the street, bringing the blood to my cheeks and almost provoking me to return. I checked the impulse however, and strode on as if I did not hear; and by the time I reached the market-place the cry had ceased. Here however it began afresh; a number of loose fellows and lads who were loafing about the stalls crying 'No Popery!' and 'Popish Schwartz!' as I passed, in a way which showed that the thing was premeditated and that they had been lying in wait for me. I stopped and scowled at them, and for a moment they ceased. But the instant my back was turned the hooting began again--with an ugly savage note in it--and I had not got quite clear of the place when some one flung a bundle of carrots, which hit me sharply on the back. I swung round in a rage at that, and dashed hot foot into the middle of the stalls in the hope of catching the fellow. But I was too late; an old woman over whom I fell was the only sufferer. The rascals had fled down an alley, and, contenting myself with crying after them that they were a set of cowards, I set the old lady on her legs, and went on my way.

But I had my thoughts. Such an insult had not been offered to me since I first came to the town to serve my lady, and it filled me with indignation. It seemed, besides, not a thing to be sneezed at. I took it for a sign of change, of bad times coming. Moreover--and this troubled me as much as anything--I had recognised among the fellows in the square two more of the fifty men my lady had sent to serve with Hesse. There seemed ground for fearing that they had deserted in a body and come back and were in hiding. If this were so, and the Burgomaster, instead of repressing them, encouraged their excesses, they were likely to prove a source of trouble and danger--real danger.

I paused on the steps leading up to the castle, in two minds whether I should not go to the Burgomaster and tell him plainly what I thought; for I felt the responsibility. My lady had no male protector, no higher servant than myself, and we had not a dozen capable men in the castle. The Landgrave of Hesse, our over-lord, was away with the King of Sweden, and we could expect 

 Prev. P 22/318 next