In The Orleannais

"But you fear him?"

"Fear him?" Madame St. Lo answered; and, to the surprise of the Countess,
she made a little face of contempt. "No; why should I fear him? I fear
him no more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho's bridle fears his tall
playfellow! Or than the cloud you see above us fears the wind before
which it flies!" She pointed to a white patch, the size of a man's hand,
which hung above the hill on their left hand and formed the only speck in
the blue summer sky. "Fear him? Not I!" And, laughing gaily, she put
her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed the grassy track on which
they rode.

"But he is hard?" the Countess murmured in a low voice, as she regained
her companion's side.

"Hard?" Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture of pride. "Ay, hard as the
stones in my jewelled ring! Hard as flint, or the nether millstone--to
his enemies! But to women? Bah! Who ever heard that he hurt a woman?"

"Why, then, is he so feared?" the Countess asked, her eyes on the subject
of their discussion--a solitary figure riding some fifty paces in front
of them.

"Because he counts no cost!" her companion answered. "Because he killed
Savillon in the court of the Louvre, though he knew his life the forfeit.
He would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right hand, if Monsieur,
for his brother the Marshal's sake, had not intervened. But Savillon had
whipped his dog, you see. Then he killed the Chevalier de Millaud, but
'twas in fair fight, in the snow, in their shirts. For that, Millaud's
son lay in wait for him with two, in the passage under the Chatelet; but
Hannibal wounded one, and the others saved themselves. Undoubtedly he is
feared!" she added with the same note of pride in her voice.