Chapter 8 - Page 2

"Then I deemed your cause as good as three parts won, and he could not hold in, but led me to a chamber where were many lords, dicing and drinking: Tremouille, Ogilvie, the Bishop of Orleans--that holy man, who has come to ask for aid from the King,--La Hire, Xaintrailles, and I know not whom. There I must tell all the chronicle again; and some said this, and some that, and Tremouille mocks, that the Maid uttered her prophecy to no other end but to make you fulfil it, and slay her enemy for the sake of her 'beaux yeux.' The others would hear nothing of this, and, indeed, though I am no gull, I wot that Tremouille is wrong here, and over cunning; he trusts neither man nor woman. Howsoever it be, he went with the story to the King, who is keen to hear any new thing. And, to be short, the end of it is this: that you have your free pardon, on these terms, namely, that you have two score of masses said for the dead man, and yourself take service under Sir Hugh Kennedy, that the King may not lose a man-at-arms."

Never, sure, came gladder tidings to any man than these to me. An hour ago the rope seemed tight about my neck; one day past, and I was but a prentice to the mean craft of painting and limning, arts good for a monk, or a manant, but, save for pleasure, not to be melled or meddled with by a man of gentle blood. And now I was to wear arms, and that in the best of causes, under the best of captains, one of my own country--a lord in Ayrshire.

"Ay, even so," my master said, marking the joy in my face, "you are right glad to leave us--a lass and a lameter. {17} Well, well, such is youth, and eld is soon forgotten."

I fell on my knees at his feet, and kissed his hands, and I believe that I wept.

"Sir," I said, "you have been to me as a father, and more than it has been my fortune to find my own father. Never would I leave you with my will, and for the gentle demoiselle, your daughter--" But here I stinted, since in sooth I knew not well what words to say.

"Ay, we shall both miss you betimes; but courage, man! After all, this new life beseems you best, and, mark me, a lass thinks none the worse of a lad because he wears not the prentice's hodden grey, but a Scots archer's green, white, and red, and Charles for badge on breast and sleeve, and a sword by his side. And as for the bonny Book of Hours--'Master,' I said with shame, 'was that my ransom?'

"Kennedy would have come near my price, and strove to make me take the gold. But what is bred in the bone will out; I am a gentleman born, not a huckster, and the book I gave him freely. May it profit the good knight in his devotions! But now, come, they are weary waiting for us; the hour waxes late, and Elliot, I trow, is long abed. You must begone to the castle."

In the stairs, and about the door, some ten of Sir Hugh's men were waiting, all countrymen of my own, and