CHAPTER VI

Mighty to Strike

“Now, beshrew these darksome woods, with ne’er a path through them! I had rather (so help me good St. George of England!) be set to find my way through yon Maze of Woodstock, of which the ballad-makers tell.”

“Right, comrade. And methinks these thickets, where twenty men might lie in ambush unseen within a spear’s length of us, are a choice chapel for the clerks of St. Nicholas” (_i.e._ robbers).

“Nay, if that were all, I care not, for even a passing brush with forest-thieves or outlaws were better than no fight at all; and I trow the lasses in merry Hampshire will hold us cheap when they hear that we have come oversea without one fight to rub the rust off our weapons. But, if all tales be true” (the speaker sank his voice to an awe-stricken whisper), “there be worse things than thieves in these woods.”

“Not a word of that, lad, an’ thou lov’st me. There is a time and a place for all things, as good Father Gregory was wont to say; and this” (casting a nervous glance over his shoulder into the deepening gloom around) “is neither the time nor the place, I trow, for tales of sprites and hobgoblins.”

Thus muttered Sir Simon Harcourt’s men-at-arms as they struggled wearily through the wood that had witnessed Bertrand du Guesclin’s wolf-fight, on the third evening after their departure from Dinan. But in exercising so freely an Englishman’s natural privilege of grumbling, the stout Hampshire yeomen were by no means without excuse.

They had been forcing their way for more than an hour through the tangled thickets of a gloomy and almost pathless wood, without ever coming any nearer, so far as they could see, either to getting clear of that dismal maze or reaching the town of Rennes, where they meant to spend the night. Then, darkness was coming on fast, menacing them with the far from agreeable prospect of wandering in the woods all night long; and last, but certainly not least, the huge black storm-cloud that was blotting out the red and angry sunset betokened the approach of such a tempest as even the hardy English would not willingly have faced unsheltered.

“’Tis not for myself I care,” said one of them; “shame on the man who makes moan like a child over a wet jerkin or an empty stomach. But my young lords are not ripe yet for hungry days and wet nights, and I ever deemed that his worship, Sir Simon, did not well to bring them hither.”

He glanced pityingly as he spoke at the slim forms of the two boy-pages.

“Why say’st thou so, Dickon?” cried another man. “Surely ’tis well for a bold lad to see the world a bit, in place of being mewed up at home like a caged singing-bird!”

“Ay, but how if the bold lad fall sick and die, through being not yet strong enow for such rough work?”

“Dickon is right,” chimed in an older man. “My young lords (God bless them both!) are full young yet for open field and hard fare; and methinks,” he added in a cautious undertone, “their loving uncle yonder would not be too sorely grieved, were it to befall them as Dickon hath said!”

“What say’st thou?” asked three or four voices at once, in tones of dismay.

“Know ye not he is the next heir after their death?” said the veteran, with grim significance. “Didst ever hear yon ballad of the ‘Babes in the Wood’?”

“Why, comrade, thou canst not mean, surely——”

“Nay, I mean nought. A man may speak of a good ballad, and no harm done.”

But the old soldier’s gloomy hints had left their mark, and thenceforth he and his comrades rode on in sombre silence.

Meanwhile the two knights who headed the train were in no blither mood.

“St. Edward! ’tis as if we were in one of the enchanted woods whereof romances tell, in which a man may wander for ever, and ne’er get one foot from his starting-place!” cried the younger man, impatiently. “My mind misgives me, Sir Simon, that we have gone much astray.”

“In sooth, I fear we have; yet methinks we did our best to follow such directions as we got in yon village, if indeed we rightly understood them, for this peasant-jargon is right hard to interpret.”

“I would I could meet one of these same peasants now, be his jargon what it might; for how shall we ask our way, if there be no man here of whom to ask it?”

“Nay, methinks I espy a man now, in the shadow of yon trees. Let us hail him. What ho, friend! are we yet nigh to Rennes?”

“To Rennes?” echoed the stranger, in a tone of amazement. “Alack, noble sirs, ye be much astray. Ye have been making straight away from the town, and were ye to turn your steeds this moment, two long leagues, and more, must ye ride to reach it.”

The younger knight growled something that did not sound like a blessing, and the rough English yeomen relieved their overwrought feelings with a burst of hearty English maledictions on Brittany, its woods, its people, and all belonging to it.

“Two leagues!” repeated Sir Simon; “the storm would be on us ere we were halfway. Hark ye, fellow, is there no dwelling near, where we may find shelter for the night?”

“Surely, noble sir; not a quarter of a league hence lieth the castle of Messire Yvon du Guesclin, who will make your worships right welcome.”

“That is good hearing,” said the younger knight, more cheerily. “Guide us thither, good fellow, and thou shalt have a silver mark for thy pains.”

“Gramercy for thy kindness, good Sir Knight; that will I do blithely,” said the man, eager to seize the chance of earning more money in half an hour than he had often made in a month. “Be pleased to follow me.”

Piloted by their new guide, the travellers soon got clear of these perplexing woods, and ere long saw before them, looming dimly through the fast-falling darkness of night, the shadowy outline of a high tower, from which, as they advanced, came faintly to their ears a clamour of loud and angry voices, a trampling of feet, the clatter of blows, and the ring of steel.

“We are in luck!” cried the younger knight, joyfully. “They are fighting within, and we are just in time, the saints be praised, for our share of the sport!”

Knights, squires, and pages loosened their swords in the sheath with a business-like and cheerful air; for, to any man of those rough times, the mere fact that a fight was going on anywhere within reach was a good reason for joining in, without caring a straw what was the cause of quarrel, or on which side lay the right.

But, to explain this tumult, we must go back a little.

Four or five of the Du Guesclin men-at-arms were lounging about the castle-yard of Motte-Brun, on their return from escorting their lady on another visit to the convent, when there came gliding among them, with a half-tripping, half-sliding step, a pale, meagre, flighty-looking man, whose fantastic dress, and parti-coloured cap adorned with small bells, showed him to be one of those nondescript personages, half idiot and half jester, who led, in the households of the gentry of that age, the life of a spaniel in a lion’s cage—now taking liberties with their masters of which no one else would have dared to dream, and now being scourged till the blood ran down, when one of those liberties happened to be ill received.

“Ha! why wentest not thou forth with us, Messire Roland?” cried one of the soldiers to the jester, whom his master had named in joke after the famous legendary champion of Charlemagne. “Had we been beset by thieves, we had sorely missed the aid of thy puissant arm.”

“Not so,” said Roland; “had ye been bare-headed, ye were safe enow without aid of mine, for never was blade forged in Brittany that could hew through skulls as thick as yours!”

A hoarse laugh applauded the retort, such as it was.

“Well, better a thick skull than an empty one, methinks,” chuckled another of the band, with a meaning leer at the jester.

“Mock me not, slave!” cried Roland, majestically, “or I will hold thee so fast that thou shalt gladly pay ransom to get free again.”

“Thou?” said the brawny, red-bearded giant whom he addressed, eyeing his challenger’s puny frame with a look of scorn.

“Even I,” replied the buffoon, solemnly. “Think’st thou that because I am weak in body, I cannot be strong in magic? I promise thee, on the faith of a madman, I will pin thee as fast as yon Paynim baron of old time, Seigneur Theseus, who was set so fast in the stocks in purgatory, that when the good knight, Sir Hercules, tore him away by main force, his legs were left behind. Sit thee down here, and mark what shall come to pass.”

The big man sat down, as bidden, on a low stone bench by the wall, and folded his huge arms with an air of defiance.

“Abracadabra!” shouted the jester, flourishing his hands within an inch of the soldier’s nose. “The spell is spoken: rise if thou canst!”

The giant, with a scornful laugh, attempted to do so; but just behind him projected from the wall a strong iron hook, which (as the crafty jester had foreseen) caught the upper edge of his steel backplate as he tried to rise, and held him down as firmly as if he were nailed to the spot!

Scared out of his wits by this strange and sudden bewitchment, the unlucky man roared like a bull, making the air ring with howls for help, fragments of half-forgotten prayers, broad Breton oaths, and vows to every saint whose name he could recollect. Meanwhile the other men (who saw at once the real cause of his strange paralysis) danced round him in ecstasy, and gave vent to roar after roar of such boisterous laughter as seemed to shake the very tower above them.

“Art thou convinced now, unhappy boaster?” said the buffoon, in a tone of condescending pity, calculated to drive the big spearman stark mad. “What ransom wilt thou pay to be freed?”

“I have but three silver groats,” gasped the victim; “take them, and free me.”

“So be it!” said Roland, with the air of a king pardoning a peasant; and, pocketing the money, he laid his hands on the giant’s shoulders, bent him down till he was freed from the hook, and said impressively, “Rise!”

The spell-bound man sprang up like a captive bursting from his dungeon, and turning hastily round, caught sight of the hook.

One glance at it, coupled with a fresh roar of laughter from his comrades, told him the whole story. With a howl like a speared wolf, he flew at the jester’s throat; but Roland, fully prepared, vanished ghost-like into the dark archway of the nearest door.

Poor Roland’s escape, however, was a case of “out of the frying-pan into the fire;” for, as he darted into the doorway, he came like a battering-ram against Alain de St. Yvon himself (the eldest of Bertrand’s three overbearing cousins, who was just coming out to learn the cause of all this uproar), driving his head into the young noble’s chest with such force as to hurl him back against the wall.

“Base-born dog!” roared the enraged Alain, in the courteous style usual with gentlemen to their inferiors in that “chivalrous” age, “I will teach thee to thrust thy vile carcass in my way! Ho there, fellows! seize this cur, and scourge him till his hide be as tattered as his wits!”

The men-at-arms (with whom the poor jester was a prime favourite) were unwillingly advancing to obey, when a voice broke in from behind, deep and menacing as the roll of distant thunder—

“Who dare talk of scourging my father’s servant in his own castle, without leave given or asked? Let any man lift a hand on him, and he shall have to do with me!”

There, in the midst of them, stood Bertrand du Guesclin, with his swarthy face all aglow, and his small, deep-set eyes flaming like live coals.

For a moment Alain himself stood aghast, for never till now had his despised cousin asserted himself like this; and his two brothers, Raoul and Huon (who had just come upon the scene), were equally astounded. There was a brief pause of indecision, and then the young bully’s native insolence broke forth anew.

“Who bade thee interfere, thou mis-shapen cub?” cried he, fiercely. “Thou shalt see thy brother-fool get his deserts forthwith, and all the more because thou pleadest for him. Ho, Charlot! give yon whining cur a taste of thy whip.”

The man he addressed (a thickset, savage-looking groom that he had brought with him to the castle) stepped forward with a grin of cruel glee on his coarse, low-browed face; but as he neared his victim, young Du Guesclin threw himself between, and grimly motioned him back.

“An thou lov’st thy life, forbear!” said he, in the low, stern tone of one who fully meant what he said; “I will not warn thee twice.”

Had the fellow been in his right senses, one glance at Bertrand’s face would have been warning enough. But he was rarely sober at that time of day, and all his natural insolence was aroused by this challenge from one whom he had always looked upon as a mere cipher in the household.

“Big words break no bones!” said he jeeringly, as he stretched his hand to seize the cowering jester.

Not a word said Bertrand in reply; but he caught up a stout pole that lay near, and brought it down like a thunderbolt full on the ruffian’s head. But that his cap was a thick one, and the skull beneath it thicker still, the cowardly rascal would never have struck a helpless man again; even as it was, he fell like a log, and lay senseless on the pavement, with the blood gushing from his mouth and nose.

Alain, now fairly beside himself with fury, sputtered out a curse too frightful to be written down, and flew at his cousin, sword in hand.

Down came the pole once more, breaking off the sword-blade close to the hilt, and snapping like a reed with the force of the blow. In another moment, Bertrand found himself in the grasp of all three brothers at once.

And then began such a struggle as the oldest soldier there had never seen. Roused to the utmost by his cousin’s insolent cruelty, and by that noble impulse to protect the helpless which was the mainspring of his whole life, Bertrand dragged the three stalwart youths hither and thither like children, and more than once well-nigh mastered all three together. Huon’s arm was crushed against a sharp corner, and bruised from wrist to elbow; Raoul got a black eye from a projecting spout; and Alain himself, with his gay clothes almost torn from his back, and his throat purple from the clutch of Bertrand’s iron fingers, had good cause to repent of his bullying. At last all four came down in a confused heap, young Du Guesclin undermost.

The three young men scrambled slowly to their feet again, torn, bruised, and aching from top to toe; but their ill-starred cousin remained lying where he had fallen, with the blood streaming over his face.

“What means this?” roared a tremendous voice amid the terrified silence that followed. “Is my castle a village tavern, that men should brawl in it?”

The turbulent youths shrank from the eye of their enraged uncle, who was bending over his prostrate son, with a look of such anxiety as he rarely showed for him, when a trumpet-blast was heard outside the gate.

“Here be guests,” said the old knight, rising hastily. “Look forth quickly, Petit-Jean, and see who they be. Some of ye bear this boy to his chamber, and let his hurt be well looked to. And as for you, ye malapert lads, go make ye fit to be seen in the hall, for, by St. Yves, ye seem in your present guise more like drunken beggars at a village fair!”

The abashed brawlers slunk away, glad to escape so easily; and the porter, having reconnoitred from the window of the gate-tower those who stood without, and exchanged a few words with them, announced to his master that two English knights, on their way to visit the Duke of Brittany, craved lodging for themselves and their train.

“Admit them forthwith,” said the castellan, as much pleased as any other country gentleman of his time at the coming of a guest who could give him all the news of the day, and whose gossip was to that age what a daily paper is to our own.

The guests were heartily welcomed, and, the evening meal being already prepared, it was placed on the board as soon as the visitors were ready, much to the satisfaction of the latter, who had been in the saddle since morning.

When Alain and his brothers made their appearance, they still bore visible marks of the recent fray; but in that bone-breaking age it was quite the correct thing for a young man of rank to wear a face like a beaten prize-fighter; and Sir Simon Harcourt mentally decided that these were “exceeding gentle and good young men.”

“I give thee joy, my noble host,” said he, bowing courteously to the three tall youths as they entered; “thou hast a goodly muster of sons to carry on thy name.”

“Gramercy for thy courtesy, fair sir,” said the old castellan, reddening slightly, “but these lads are no sons of mine; they are but my dead sister’s orphan children. But one son have I, and he may not quit his chamber, being somewhat ill at ease with a hurt he hath gotten.”

How his son had got that hurt, the good knight did not think fit to say.

Sir Yvon listened eagerly to all his visitors’ news, being specially delighted to hear that a new war was expected between France and England. Filling his silver goblet to the brim, he uttered the toast, “May we soon meet again on the battlefield!” as heartily as if he were wishing his guests every kind of prosperity.

The latter echoed the pledge with a heartiness natural to an age when men were feasting together at one moment and fighting together the next; and Harcourt said, with a quick glance at his boy-nephews—

“Here be two lads, fair sir, who will blithely say Amen to that good wish of thine, for they have never seen a stricken field; and, in truth, Alured and Hugo de Claremont are the heads of our house, though they now serve me as pages.”

“The better for them!” cried the old knight, looking approvingly at the two handsome, high-bred faces, and secretly rejoicing at the accident that had kept his own ugly son from being contrasted with them. “There is nought like discipline for young blood, and he who has not learned to obey as a page will never be fit to command as a knight. I drink to you, Master Alured, and to you, Master Hugo; and soon may ye both win your spurs on some well-fought field!”

And then, at a sign from his master, the household minstrel (for every baron of that age “kept a poet,” like the London firm in the old story) struck up a very appropriate song—

“The Merchant he sitteth ’mid bags of coin With a grave and wrinkled brow; He loveth to hold the good red gold, But he likes not the steel, I trow! His wares sell high to all who can buy, And of two he can well make three; But he knows not to wield the blade and shield— What profit, what profit is he?

“The Scholar he spelleth out learned lore From his parchment’s musty fold; He is skilled to look in many a book Writ by hands that have long been cold. But his thin white hand never grasped a brand, Nor ever made lance-shaft flee, And pale is his cheek, and his arm is weak— What profit, what profit is he?

“The Minstrel he roams from land to land In his flaunting robe so gay, And light o’er the strings his soft hand he flings As he pours the melting lay. They feed him high, and they lodge him well, And rich is his golden fee; But his hand ne’er did feel the gauntlet of steel— What profit, what profit is he?

“But the softest pillow the Warrior hath Is the boss of his battered shield, Where the firebrand’s light, thro’ the murky night, Glares red on the foughten field. The wares _he_ loves are of good hard steel, _His_ music, the sword-clang free; And when foemen stand ’gainst his native land, Good profit, good profit is he!”

At daybreak on the morrow the knights and their train left the castle on their way to Rennes. As the twin pages rode after their uncle, Alured de Claremont turned for a last look at the grim old tower, and Bertrand du Guesclin (who, having begun to get over the effects of his broken head, had dragged himself to his window to witness the departure) looked down in wondering admiration, not wholly untinged with envy, on the English boy’s bright, comely face, little guessing under what terribly changed conditions he was one day to see that face again.

“Had I but a face like yon lad!” said the Breton boy, with a deep sigh. “Why should he be the delight of every eye, and I a loathing to all that look upon me?”

But then came back to him the pilgrim-monk’s warning to “curb his own rebellious spirit,” and with it came the memory of the strange dream in which he had seen himself crowned with laurels as the champion of France. His face brightened at the recollection, and he knelt down with a lighter heart to say his morning prayer.