by Various
CHAPTER IV--IN WHAT COMPANY NORMAN LESLIE ENTERED CHINON; AND HOW HEDEMEANED HIMSELF TO TAKE SERVICE
Not seemly, was it, that I should expect these kind people, even thoughthey were of my own country, to do more for me than they had alreadydone. So, when I had eaten and drunk, I made my obeisance as if I wouldbe trudging towards Chinon, adding many thanks, as well I might.
"Nay, countryman," said the man, "for all that I can see, you may as wellbide a while with us; for, indeed, with leave of my graceless maid, Ithink we may even end our wild-goose chase here and get us back to thetown."
Seeing me marvel, perhaps, that any should have ridden some four miles orfive, and yet speak of returning, he looked at the girl, who was playingwith the jackanapes, and who smiled at him as he spoke. "You must know,"said he, "that though I am the father of your Fairy Queen, I am also oneof the gracious Princess's obedient subjects. No mother has she, poorwench," he added, in a lower voice; "and faith, we men must always obeysome woman--as it seems now that the King himself must soon do and allhis captains."
"You speak," I said, "of the gracious Queen of Sicily and Jerusalem?"--alady who was thought to be of much avail, as was but right, in thecounsels of her son-in-law, the Dauphin, he having married her gentledaughter.
"Ay; Queen Yolande is far ben {7} with the King--would he had no worsecounsellors!" said he, smiling; "but I speak of a far more potentsovereign, if all that she tells of herself be true. You have heard, orbelike you have not heard, of the famed Pucelle--so she calls herself, Ihope not without a warranty--the Lorrainer peasant lass, who is to drivethe English into the sea, so she gives us all fair warning?"
"Never a word have I heard, or never marked so senseless a bruit if Iheard it; she must be some moon-struck wench, and in her wits wandering."
"Moon-struck, or sun-struck, or saint-struck, she will strike down ourancient enemy of England, and show you men how it is not wine andwickedness that make good soldiers!" cried the girl whom he calledElliot, her face rose-red with anger; and from her eyes two blue rays oflight shot straight to mine, so that I believe my face waxed wan, theblood flying to my heart.
"Listen to her! look at her!" said her father, jestingly. "Elliot, ifyour renowned maid can fright the English as you have affrayed a goodScot, the battle is won and Orleans is delivered."
But she had turned her back on us pettishly, and was talking in a lowvoice to her jackanapes. As for me, if my face had been pale before, itnow grew red enough for shame that I had angered her, who was so fair,though how I had sinned I knew not. But often I have seen that women,and these the best, will be all afire at a light word, wherein thetouchiest man-at-arms who ever fought on the turn of a straw could pickno honourable quarrel.
"How have I been so unhappy as to offend mademoiselle?" I asked, in awhisper, of her father, giving her a high title, in very confusion.
"Oh, she will hear no bourde nor jest on this Pucelle that all thecountryside is clashing of, and that is bewitching my maid, methinks,even from afar. My maid Elliot (so I call her from my mother's kin, buther true name is Marion, and the French dub her Heliote) hath set all herheart and her hope on one that is a young lass like herself, and she isfull of old soothsayings about a virgin that is to come out of an oak-wood and deliver France--no less! For me, I misdoubt that Merlin, theWelsh prophet on whom they set store, and the rest of the soothsayers,are all in one tale with old Thomas Rhymer, of Ercildoune, whoseprophecies our own folk crack about by the ingle on winter nights athome. But be it as it may, this wench of Lorraine has, thesethree-quarters of a year, been about the Sieur Robert de Baudricourt, nowcommanding for the King at Vaucouleurs, away in the east, praying him tosend her to the Court. She has visions, and hears voices--so she says;and she gives Baudricourt no peace till he carries her to the King. Thestory goes that, on the ill day of the Battle of the Herrings, she, beingat Vaucouleurs--a hundred leagues away and more,--saw that fight plainly,and our countrymen fallen, manlike, around the Constable, and the Frenchflying like hares before a little pack of English talbots. When the evilnews came, and was approved true, Baudricourt could hold her in nolonger, and now she is on the way with half a dozen esquires and archersof his command. The second-sight she may have--it is common enough, ifyou believe the red-shanked Highlanders; but if maiden she set forth fromVaucouleurs, great miracle it is if maiden she comes to Chinon." Hewhispered this in a manner that we call "pauky," being a free man withhis tongue.
"This is a strange tale enough," I said; "the saints grant that the Maidspeaks truly!"
"But yesterday came a letter of her sending to the King," he went on,"but never of her writing, for they say that she knows not 'A' from 'B,'if she meets them in her voyaging. Now, nothing would serve my wilfuldaughter Elliot (she being possessed, as I said, with love for thisfemale mystery), but that we must ride forth and be the first to meet theMaid on her way, and offer her shelter at my poor house, if she does butseem honest, though methinks a hostelry is good enough for one that hasridden so far, with men for all her company. And I, being but a subjectof my daughter's, as I said, and this a Saint's Day, when a man may restfrom his paints and brushes, I even let saddle the steeds, and came forthto see what ferlies Heaven would send us."
"Oh, a lucky day for me, fair sir," I answered him, marvelling to hearhim speak of paint and brushes, and even as I spoke a thought came intomy mind. "If you will listen to me, sir," I said, "and if the gentlemaid, your daughter, will pardon me for staying you so long from theroad, I will tell you that, to my thinking, you have come over late, forthat yesterday the Maiden you speak of rode, after nightfall, intoChinon."
Now the girl turned round on me, and, in faith, I asked no more than tosee her face, kind or angry. "You tell us, sir, that you never heardspeak of the Maid till this hour, and now you say that you know of hercomings and goings. Unriddle your riddle, sir, if it pleases you, andsay how you saw and knew one that you never heard speech of."
She was still very wroth, and I knew not whether I might not anger heryet more, so I louted lowly, cap in hand, and said--
"It is but a guess that comes into my mind, and I pray you be not angrywith me, who am ready and willing to believe in this Maid, or in any thatwill help France, for, if I be not wrong, last night her coming saved mylife, and that of her own company."
"How may that be, if thieves robbed and bound you?"
"I told you not all my tale," I said, "for, indeed, few would havebelieved the thing that had not seen it. But, upon my faith as agentleman, and by the arm-bone of the holy Apostle Andrew, which thesesinful eyes have seen, in the church of the Apostle in his own town,somewhat holy passed this way last night; and if this Maid be indeed sentfrom heaven, that holy thing was she, and none other."
"Nom Dieu! saints are not common wayfarers on our roads at night. Thereis no 'wale' of saints in this country," said the father of Elliot; "andas this Pucelle of Lorraine must needs pass by us here, if she is stillon the way, even tell us all your tale."
With that I told them how the "brigands" (for so they now began to callsuch reivers as Brother Thomas) were, to my shame, and maugre my head,for a time of my own company. And I told them of the bushment that theylaid to trap travellers, and how I had striven to give a warning, and howthey bound me and gagged me, and of the strange girl's voice that spokethrough the night of "mes Freres de Paradis," and of that golden "boyn"faring in the dark, that I thought I saw, and of the words spoken by theblind man and the soldier, concerning some vision which affrayed them, Iknow not what.
At this tale the girl Elliot, crossing herself very devoutly, criedaloud--
"O father, did I not tell you so? This holy thing can have been no otherbut that blessed Maiden, guarded by the dear saints in form visible, whomthis gentleman, for the sin of keeping evil company, was not given thegrace to see. Oh, come, let us mount and ride to Chinon, for already sheis within the walls; had we not ridden forth so early, we must have heardtell of it."
It seemed some
thing hard to me that I was to have no grace to behold whatothers, and they assuredly much more sinful men than myself, had beenpermitted to look upon, if this damsel was right in that she said. Andhow could any man, were he himself a saint, see what was passing by, whenhis head was turned the other way? Howbeit, she called me a gentleman,as indeed I had professed myself to be, and this I saw, that her passionof anger against me was spent, as then, and gone by, like a shower ofApril.
"Gentleman you call yourself, sir," said her father; "may I ask of whathouse?"
"We are cadets of the house of Rothes," I answered. "My father, Leslieof Pitcullo, is the fourth son of the third son of the last laird ofRothes but one; and, for me, I was of late a clerk studying in St.Andrews."
"I will not ask why you left your lore," he said; "I have been youngmyself, and, faith, the story of one lad varies not much from the storyof another. If we have any spirit, it drives us out to fight the foreignloons in their own country, if we have no feud at home. But you are aclerk, I hear you say, and have skill enough to read and write?"
"Yea, and, if need were, can paint, in my degree, and do fair letteringon holy books, for this art was my pleasure, and I learned it from aworthy monk in the abbey."
"O day of miracles!" he cried. "Listen, Elliot, and mark how finely Ihave fallen in luck's way! Lo you, sir, I also am a gentleman in mydegree, simple as you see me, being one of the Humes of Polwarth; but byreason of my maimed leg, that came to me with scars many, from certainshrewd blows got at Verneuil fight, I am disabled from war. A murrain onthe English bill that dealt the stroke! To make up my ransom (for I wastaken prisoner there, where so few got quarter) cost me every crown Icould gather, so I even fell back on the skill I learned, like you, whenI was a lad, from a priest in the Abbey of Melrose. Ashamed of my craftI am none, for it is better to paint banners and missals than to beg; andnow, for these five years, I am advanced to be Court painter to the Kinghimself, thanks to John Kirkmichael, Bishop of Orleans, who is of my far-away kin. A sore fall it is, for a Hume of Polwarth; and strangelyenough do the French scribes write my name--'Hauves Poulvoir,' andotherwise, so please you; but that is ever their wont with the best namesin all broad Scotland. Lo you, even now there is much ado with banner-painting for the companies that march to help Orleans, ever and again."
"When the Maiden marches, father, you shall have banner-painting," saidthe girl.
"Ay, lass, when the Maid marches, and when the lift falls and smoors thelaverocks we shall catch them in plenty. {8} But, Maid or no Maid, savingyour presence, sir, I need what we craftsmen (I pray you again to pardonme) call an apprentice, and I offer you, if you are skilled as you say,this honourable post, till you find a better."
My face grew red again with anger at the word "apprentice," and I knownot how I should have answered an offer so unworthy of my blood, when thegirl broke in--
"Till this gentleman marches with the flower of France against our oldenemy of England, you should say, father, and helps to show them anotherBannockburn on Loire-side."
"Ay, well, till then, if it likes you," he said, smiling. "Till thenthere is bed, and meat, and the penny fee for him, till that great day."
"That is coming soon!" she cried, her eyes raised to heaven, and so fairshe looked, that, being a young man and of my complexion amorous, I couldnot bear to be out of her company when I might be in it, so stooped mypride to agree with him.
"Sir," I said, "I thank you heartily for your offer. You come of as gooda house as mine, and yours is the brag of the Border, as mine is of thekingdom of Fife. If you can put your pride in your pouch, faith, so canI; the rather that there is nothing else therein, and so room enough andto spare. But, as touching what this gentle demoiselle has said, I maymarch also, may I not, when the Maid rides to Orleans?"
"Ay, verify, with my goodwill, then you may," he cried, laughing, whilethe lass frowned.
Then we clapped hands on it, for a bargain, and he did not insult me bythe offer of any arles, or luck penny.
The girl was helped to horse, setting her foot on my hand, that dirled asher little shoe sole touched it; and the jackanapes rode on her saddle-bow very proudly. For me, I ran as well as I might, but stiffly enough,being cold to the marrow, holding by the father's stirrup-leather andwatching the lass's yellow hair that danced on her shoulders as she rodeforemost. In this company, then, so much better than that I had left, weentered Chinon town, and came to their booth, and their house on thewater-side. Then, of their kindness, I must to bed, which comfort Isorely needed, and there I slept, in fragrant linen sheets, till complinerang.