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Everything worth saying seemed to have been said, everything worth doing to have been done. Suddenly, in that silence, Bardon caught sight of Evander where he stood apart, disdainful, between his guards, and the sight pricked his wits. Turning to his mates, he thumbed at the prisoner over his shoulder. "Should we not make the crop-ear yonder pledge the Lady of Loyalty House?" he questioned.
"Have the goodness to keep your pity for those who need it, crop-ear," said Scarlett, scornfully; "and recollect that I am, though a prisoner, one of his Majesty's officers, one who holds no converse with rebels." Fred's cheeks flushed again, and his brow wrinkled. "Very well," he said angrily. "We are fighting on opposite sides, but I did not know that we need insult each other when we met."
"Stand back!" cried Morton and his companions, "it was all fair play; your comrade sought a fall, and he has got it." "That is true enough," said Bothwell, as he slowly rose; "put up your bilbo, Tom. I did not think there was a crop-ear of them all could have laid the best cap and feather in the King's Life-Guards on the floor of a rascally change-house. Hark ye, friend, give me your hand."
"It is what my mother is always blaming me for," said Walter; "but really, now, Edmund, doesn't it savour of the crop-ear to be picking one's words to every rogue in one's way?" "Nay, Walter, you should not ask me that question, just coming from France. There we hold that the best token, in our poverty, that we are cavaliers and gentlemen, is to be courteous to all, high and low.
It works. He's telling Crop-ear not to shoot, 'fear of hitting you." Amaryllis pushed his hands away, clutched her ankle and moaned aloud. Dick turned from her and, at a better pace than before, hobbled across the road, pursued by entreaties from Amaryllis so agonized and lifelike as almost to deceive the very author of the scheme.
A serf, detected in eating a few of the pickled cherries intended for the Prince's botvinia, was placed in a cask, and pickled cherries packed around him up to the chin. There he was kept until almost flayed by the acid. It was ordered that these two delinquents should never afterwards be called by any other names than "Crop-Ear" and "Cherry."
"I will not have the prisoners insulted." "It's the prisoners insulting us, Master Fred I mean captain. It's this ne'er-do-well of a brother o' mine bragging and bouncing because his hair's grown a bit longer than mine. He keeps calling me crop-ears, sir, and showing off as if he was a Cavalier." "So you are a crop-ear and a rebel," said Nat, for his fall had hurt him, and made him disagreeable.
The ice, meanwhile, had become so strong that a cannon-ball would have made no impression upon it. Crop-Ear simply threw down a stone heavier than himself, and, as it bounced and slid along the solid floor, said to Prince Alexis, "Am I to go back, Highness, or stay here?" "Here, my son. Thou'rt a man. Come hither to me." Taking the serf's head in his hands, he kissed him on both cheeks.
Then, still keeping his eye upon the fellow: "Kenneth," he said, "attend to the crop-ear yonder, he will be recovering. Truss him with the bedclothes, and gag him with his scarf. See to it, Kenneth, and do it well, but leave his nostrils free that he may breathe." Kenneth carried out Galliard's orders swiftly and effectively, what time Crispin remained standing over the recumbent minister.
Huge fires were made, for the night was falling, and the cold had become intense. Fresh game was skewered and set to broil, and the tragic interlude of the revel was soon forgotten. Towards midnight the sound of hoofs was heard, and the messengers arrived with Crop-Ear. But, although the latter had lost his ears, he was not inclined to split his head.