Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/340

308 rows of hooks which held up sides of bacon, joints of smoked beef, and strings of onions for winter use. In the very centre of all these, upon the largest hook of all, there hung a fat little red-faced man with enormous whiskers, kicking madly in the air and clawing at rafters, hams, and all else that was within hand-grasp. The huge steel hook had been passed through the collar of his leather jerkin, and there he hung like a fish on a line, writhing, twisting, and screaming, but utterly unable to free himself from his extraordinary position. It was not until Alleyne and the landlord had mounted on the table that they were able to lift him down, when he sank gasping with rage into a seat, and rolled his eyes round in every direction. 'Has he gone?' quoth he.

'Gone? Who?'

'He, the man with the red head, the giant man.'

'Yes,' said Alleyne, 'he hath gone.'

'And comes not back?'

'No.'

'The better for him!' cried the little man, with a long sigh of relief. 'Mon Dieu! What! am I not the champion of the Bishop of Montaubon? Ah, could I have descended, could I have come down, ere he fled! Then you would have seen. You would have beheld a spectacle then. There would have been one rascal the less upon earth. Ma foi, yes!' 'Good master Pelligny,' said the landlord, 'these gentlemen have not gone very fast, and I have a horse in the stable at your disposal, for I would rather have such bloody doings as you threaten outside the four walls of mine auberge.'

'I hurt my leg and cannot ride,' quoth the bishop's champion. 'I strained a sinew on the day that I slew the three men at Castelnau.'

'God save you, master Pelligny!' cried the landlord. 'It must be an awesome thing to have so much blood upon one's soul. And yet I do not wish to see so valiant a man mishandled, and so I will, for friendship's sake, ride after this Englishman and bring him back to you.'