CHAPTER I.

CAPTAIN GRIFFITH AND HIS CHAPLAIN.

The morning after William Caillet, Jocelyn the Champion and Rufin the Tankard-smasher left Paris, a band of English adventurers, commanded by Captain Griffith, and who for some time had been raiding the region of Beauvoisis, was marching under a balmy May sun in the direction of the village of Cramoisy. The men, about a hundred all told, and armed with weapons of different descriptions, marched in disorder with the exception of about fifty archers who carried on their shoulders their six-feet-long ash bows, a favorite weapon with the English, and which they handled with such dexterity that at the battle of Poitiers ten thousand of them were enough to put to rout the army of King John, consisting of more than forty thousand men commanded by the elite of the French nobility.

Several empty carts, hitched to horses and oxen and led by peasants who had been pressed into Captain Griffith's band under pain of death, were intended for the prospective booty. The English sold to the contiguous towns the proceeds of their thefts from the castles, as well as the droves of cattle that they took from the fields. In these towns the raiders were certain of purchasers for the sufficient reason that whoever refused was hanged on the spot. Captain Griffith affected a lordly generosity towards his customers in consenting to leave with them the spoils of his thieving exploits in exchange for moneys that it was in his power to rob them of. In his quality of the bastard of a great lord, the Duke of Norfolk, he prided himself of acting courteously, "as a true Englishman," according to his favorite phrase, and not scurvily like so many other leaders of mercenary bands.

Captain Griffith--a man in the full vigor of his age, robust and corpulent, and with hair and beard of a reddish blonde--rode at the head of his archers, the elites of his troop. Although in full armor, he had hung his casque on the pommel of his saddle, and now wore on his head a bonnet of fox-skin. Boldness, incontinence and a sort of cruel joviality stood out from the features of the Englishman that wore a rubicund tint from the potations and meats that he was in the habit of swallowing in enormous quantities. The morning air having sharpened his appetite, if ever it can be said to have been satisfied, the bastard of Norfolk was picking a ham, and from time to time lovingly resorted to a wine pouch that also hung from the pommel of his saddle. At his side rode his lieutenant, whom with impious mockery he styled his "Chaplain." Guilty of all the crimes on the calendar, Captain Griffith took, like Rolf the Norman pirate before him, a diabolical delight in all manner of sacrilege.

The Chaplain, a hulky scamp with a toper's face and as vigorous of bone as his Captain, wore under his iron coat of mail a monk's gown and on his head a steel helmet.

"My son," said he to the bastard of Norfolk, "without meaning to offend you, I shall have to call your attention to the fact that this is the third time you put your wine pouch to your mouth without offering your brother in Beelzebub to quench his thirst."

"What have you eaten, Chaplain, to make you so thirsty?"

"By the devil! I have been eating with my eyes the ham that you have been devouring with your teeth."

"Why, then, quench your thirst by seeing me drink! Your health, friend!"

"Sacrilege! To refuse wine to a thirsty chaplain! I would prefer, for the sake of your salvation, to see you again journey a whole day on a stretch in a chariot drawn by St. Patrick, the abbot, and his 'chapter.'"

"Pshaw!" hissed Griffith; "there were relays."

"True, several relays, each of twelve monks, and they were successively hitched. It was in your favor."

"There, devil's Chaplain, drink! Drink to my amorous exploits!"

After having kept for a seemingly interminable time his lips glued to the orifice of the pouch that the Captain had passed over to him, the Chaplain detached them for a moment, not so much for the purpose of answering his worthy chief as for the purpose of taking breath. Breathing heavily, he asked: "What amorous exploits? Sacred or profane ones?" and then proceeded to quaff.

"I mean that winsome tavern-keeper, who escaped us at the pillage of the little town of Nointel. Since that day, the pretty ankles of the brunette have not ceased trotting in my brain. As sure as I am Norfolk's bastard," added the Captain while the Chaplain continued to drain the contents of the pouch at long draughts, "there are two things that I would sell my soul to Beelzebub for. First, to snatch up that luscious tavern-keeper, second to fight with that tall scamp whom we released from the dungeons of Beaumont. He was then but a bag of bones, but when he will have been fatted up, I would wager your neck, Chaplain, that there is not the likes of him in this whole poltroon country of Gaul. I am tired of seeing only puny knights at the point of my lance whom I run down as if they were nine-pins. What a set of cowards these French noblemen are!"

At this point, the lieutenant, who had never ceased drinking, emitted a long gurgling sound, while with his free hand he pointed to a small troop of armed foot-men headed by a rider, and who pursued a route that somewhat led away from that of the English, but that ran out upon the same clearance at the top of a hill. The rider who led the foot-men, ordered a halt, and galloping over the meadow approached the English troop with his right hand up as a sign that he had no hostile intentions. Fearing, nevertheless, some ambuscade, Captain Griffith also ordered his troop to halt, but he placed his archers in line, donned his casque, took his long stout lance from the hands of one of his men, and seeing the Chaplain still clinging to the pouch of wine struck it from his lips with so dexterous a lance thrust that, slightly grazing the drinker's nose, the weapon hurled the pouch ten paces off. "You have watered quite enough!" he said with a gruff laugh.

"Fortunately the pouch is now empty," said the Chaplain wiping his mouth with the back of his right hand; "not a drop has been lost."

The unknown rider approached the while, but suddenly reined in seeing the archers, as was their wont before shooting their bolts, plant their left feet in the center of their bows in order to bend them.

"I come as a friend!"

"Who are you?" demanded the bastard of Norfolk. "What do you want?"

"I am the bailiff of the Sire of Nointel, the seigneur of these domains. I wish to speak with the valiant Captain Griffith."

"I am he.... What do you want?"

"Sir, is it you who have just pillaged the burgs and villages of our seigneur, the Sire of Nointel?"

"Would you, perchance, want to prevent me?"

"On the contrary, Sir; I have come in the name of my seigneur to offer you the advice of my old experience in order to help you to collect ransom from these villeins. Jacques Bonhomme is a wily customer; he has hiding places where he keeps his coin under shelter, and even provisions and cattle."

"Chaplain," the Captain broke in upon the bailiff, "we shall have to cut the ears of this fellow who comes here to mock us. Draw your cutlass and give him absolution for his sins."

"Sir, listen to me, and you will be convinced that I am not joking!" cried the bailiff. "Are you the son of the Duke of Norfolk?"

"A bastard son by my mother's virtue. But seeing she bestowed upon me a good fist, good eyes and good teeth I hold her quits. I remain noble from one side."

"The Duke your father knows that you hold the field in this region, and he is charmed with your prowesses. He wrote so to my master."

"A short time ago, on the occasion of one of my archers' return to Guyenne, I wrote to my father: 'My lord, in your life you gave me nothing but a kick with your left foot which I still feel; but I am none the less your affectionate bastard who is doing havoc in Gaul and who signs himself--Captain Griffith.'"

"Sir," said the bailiff handing a letter to the Captain, "here is the answer of the noble Duke, your father."

Greatly astonished, Captain Griffith broke the seal on the parchment and read: "One of the poltroon French knights whom I took prisoner at the battle of Poitiers will deliver this letter to you and also six thousand florins for his ransom. You are a fine scamp. Persevere in your exploits--Norfolk."

"What a father!" exclaimed the Chaplain raising his hands to heaven. "What a son!"

"Six thousand florins!" cried Captain Griffith. "Well! The good man must have remembered my worthy mother"; and addressing the bailiff he asked: "Where are the six thousand florins?"

"In the purses of the vassals of my seigneur, the Sire of Nointel, who was taken prisoner at the battle of Poitiers by the noble Duke of Norfolk. But, oh! My master is ruined by the costs of war and not a florin in the castle. But he gave his word as a Christian and a knight to pay his ransom to your father or to you, Sir. He will keep his word. It is an established custom that the vassals must ransom their seigneurs when taken prisoner. I therefore come, Sir Captain, to offer to you, by order of my master what little service I can render to you to the end of aiding you in collecting the sum, a very difficult thing to do without our aid. If you want a proof, all you have to do is to follow me not far from here, and you will see something that will greatly astonish you."

Captain Griffith, whose curiosity was now pricked, started his horse at the pace of the bailiff's, and resuming its march the troop descended the flank of the hill at whose foot lay the straggling village of Cramoisy, consisting of about three hundred cottages and houses. The silence of the tomb reigned in these homes. They were deserted, and the open doors showed their interiors to be empty and bare. Stupefied, Captain Griffith reined in his horse and said to the bailiff:

"By the devil! Where are the inhabitants of these shanties?"

"The other villages of this seigniory are as deserted as this one. You will find there, Sir, neither women, nor men, nor children, nor cattle," answered the bailiff. "There are left, as you see, only the four walls of the houses. You will, therefore, find it difficult to collect here even the smallest fraction of your six thousand florins. Jacques Bonhomme is a sly fox; he had wind of your coming and has run into the earth to escape you. But, to a sly fox a sly limehound. I know the burrow of Jacques Bonhomme. Follow me, Sir."

"Where to? Whither do you lead us?"

"Only one league from here.... But we shall have to descend from our horses at the outskirts of the forest. You can leave there the gross of your troop. A dozen of your archers will be enough for the job I have in mind. The risk is slight."

"Why would you have me descend from horseback, and leave behind the bulk of my troop?"

"It will, in the first place, be impossible for us to ride on horseback over the quagmires, jungles and bogs that we shall have to cross in order to arrive at the hiding place of Jacques Bonhomme. In the second place, the fox has a sharp ear. The noise made by a large troop would give him the alarm."

"Captain," suggested the Chaplain, "suppose this scamp were but leading us into an ambuscade?"

"Chaplain, never did Griffith recoil before danger," was the Captain's answer; "moreover, if this bailiff with a marten's snout should deceive us, let him be forewarned. At the first suspicion of treachery we shall promptly hack him to pieces."

"That's right," returned the Chaplain. "Let's march! His skin answers for our lives."

"March!" ordered Captain Griffith, and guided by the bailiff, who had been rejoined by his men, the troop left the village of Cramoisy and wended its way towards a forest, the skirt of which drew its length along the horizon.