by David Ker
CHAPTER XXII
A Clever Stratagem
At that renowned name, the bandits eyed each other doubtfully, as ifhardly able to believe that the greatest warrior of the age stood amongthem in the guise of a simple knight-errant. But one glance at theharsh but striking features which (as the great captain often said injest) no man who had once seen them could ever forget, carriedconviction to all; and in a moment the savage gang were pressing roundhim with shouts of rough welcome, the Black Wolf himself being theforemost.
"Let him go free, captain!" cried the robbers; "it were sin and shameto take ransom from _him_!"
"What talk ye of ransom, lads?" said the chief, with a gruff chuckle."Here is no question of any man's ransom but my own; for it is not hewho is my captive, but I who am his."
"What! did he overcome thee in single fight?" cried a dozen voices atonce, in blank amazement; for never before had the dreaded Black Wolfbeen conquered, and his wild followers had never dreamed that he couldbe.
"Ay, that did he!" said the Wolf, with a thoroughly characteristicenjoyment of his conqueror's prowess. "Marry, if ye doubt it, try himyourselves, any two of ye together; I'll warrant he will find work forboth!"
But the robbers seemed quite satisfied with his testimony, and made nooffer to put it to the proof.
"Hark ye, comrades," broke in Du Guesclin, "one of ye fetch me quicklya rough cloth or a wisp of straw, that I may rub down my good horse,which hath been sore toiled this day; and then, if it be supper-timewith ye here, I would gladly eat a bit in your good company, for I amas hungry as a wolf in winter."
The blunt heartiness of the great soldier's address was just to thetaste of these rough men, on whom fine words and courtly phrases wouldhave been thrown away. His caring for his good steed, too, beforethinking of his own needs, was what the rudest of them couldappreciate; and in a trice he was seated among them as an honouredguest, as much at home in this den of thieves as at the brilliant Courtof Brittany.
"Now, lads," cried he, as this strange picnic ended, "in requital ofyour good cheer, I will tell ye of a goodly sport that I have devised,which ye are the very men to carry out. With a few score tall fellowslike you to aid me, I doubt not to bring it to a prosperous issue; andif I do, it will be a jest for the old wives of Bretagne to tell theirgrand-children for many a day after we are dead and gone."
His project was plainly received by the outlaws as a first-rate joke;for, as he expounded it, his words were half-drowned by peal after pealof laughter; and, ere he ended, all the band (the Black Wolf included)had vowed to stand by him through thick and thin.
"Marry, this is the weather to bring to remembrance Christmas-tide inMerry England, where I would we all were now. There, at least, if wehad cold and frost, we had good cheer as well; but in thisheaven-forsaken land of briars and wolves (beshrew it and all thatpertaineth to it!) we have none of the good cheer, and a double portionof cold to atone for the lack of it!"
So growled, as well as his chattering teeth would let him, thehalf-frozen gate-porter of Fougeray Castle (a Breton fortress latelycaptured by a detachment of the Duke of Lancaster's English army) on ableak, gloomy winter evening.
"For my part," grunted the stout English archer whom he addressed, "hadI but fire enow to keep the blood from freezing in my veins, I couldmake shift without the cheer thou speak'st of. Ere long we shall be atour last faggot, unless our captain and his men bring back some woodfrom their foraging this night."
"That were an unlikely chance," muttered the porter, with a gloomyshake of his grey head; "for he who tarries to cut wood when Bertranddu Guesclin is abroad, may be himself cut down instead. But at whatlook'st thou so earnestly, comrade?"
"Methinks my wish is granted as soon as spoken, like him that had afairy godmother in the old tale," grinned the archer; "for yonder, ifmy eyes deceive me not, come six stout peasants, each with a lusty loadof faggots!"
He was right, and even the crabbed old porter's sour face brightened ashe saw that not only were the broad shoulders of the advancing peasantsfreighted with faggots, but that they were dragging with them a rude"sled," piled high with logs and bundles of firewood.
The drawbridge being down for the convenience of the English commandant(who was expected back every moment with his hundred foragers), the sixgrey-frocked, slouch-hatted, long-haired fellows came right up to thegate, and the foremost (a short, sturdy, clumsy man very much like abear on hind legs) said humbly, in rude and broken French--
"Good sirs, if ye need wood, I pray ye of your grace to buy this thatwe have brought. Such valiant gentlemen, with the spoil of all Francein their pouches, will not grudge a penny to us poor fellows!"
"Marry, ye have brought your wares to the right market!" laughed thearcher. "Bring in your load, and when our captain returns (as he willspeedily) I warrant he pays ye in right English fashion for such storeof winter fuel."
With many a grunt and gasp (as if their strength were well nigh spentwith dragging that heavy load up the steep path to the castle gate) thepeasants tugged their sled forward. But, just inside the gate, theyfairly stuck fast, leaving sled and log-pile (quite by accident, ofcourse) just under the grate of the portcullis, which was thus keptfrom falling to bar the entrance.
"Ho there, lads!" cried the archer to three others who were loungingabout the courtyard, "come and aid me and Peter Gateward to drag inthis load, since these lazy fellows find it too hard for them!"
But as he spoke, down he went, felled to the earth as if crushed by afalling mountain; and the foremost peasant, flinging off his coarsefrock, appeared in full armour. A tall man beside him, doing the same,uttered a cry like the howl of a wolf, which was instantly answered bythe bursting of a throng of armed men from their ambush in the thicketsbelow.
The next moment the three other archers and the porter fell in turn;but the staunch old warder, mortally hurt as he was, had clutched withhis dying hand the cord of the alarm-bell, and rung a peal thatstartled the whole garrison. The first men who came panting up made afrantic effort to let fall the portcullis; but the piled-up woodchecked it midway, and in a moment more the shouting assailants burstin like a wave, echoing their leader's war-cry of "Notre Dame, DuGuesclin!"
Surprised, half-armed, without a leader, most of the English werebeaten down and made prisoners almost ere they could draw weapon. A fewmade a desperate stand in the inner gateway, and fairly hemmed in DuGuesclin and the Black Wolf, who had charged headlong through it; butthe two leaders, standing grimly back to back against them all, heldtheir own till their men, having cleared the courtyard, came rushing totheir aid; and so the castle was won.
But hardly was all over, when a distant trumpet blast came echoing frombelow, and the English commandant and his men were seen returning withtheir booty, in a careless, straggling fashion that told its own taleto Bertrand's keen eye.
Wounded as he was by a severe slash in the face, the hero sallied outupon them at once with a body of picked men, disguised in the dress oftheir English captives; and the trick was perfectly successful. Thecommandant himself fell by Du Guesclin's hand, and few of his menescaped death or capture.
"Well, lads," cried Bertrand, as he and his wild recruits sat down tothe meal prepared for the English leader, with many a hoarse laugh atthis complete turning of the tables, "ye have right gallantly begunyour new service, and a new service deserveth a new name. Henceforthlet all men call ye 'Du Guesclin's Woodmen.'"
"THE SHOUTING ASSAILANTS BURST IN"]
And the ex-outlaws, with shouts of approving laughter, accepted thetitle that was to make them famous in history.