Chapter 22

HOW NORMAN LESLIE FARED IN PARIS TOWN

"Norman, my lad, all our fortunes are made," said Randal to me when we were left alone. "There will be gilt spurs and gold for every one of us, and the pick of the plunder."

"I like it not," I answered; whereon he caught me rudely by both shoulders, looking close into my face, so that the fume of the wine he had been drinking reached my nostrils.

"Is a Leslie turning recreant?" he asked in a low voice. "A pretty tale to tell in the kingdom of Fife!"

I stood still, my heart very hot with anger, and said no word, while his grip closed on me.

"Leave hold," I cried at last, and I swore an oath, may the Saints forgive me,--"I will not go!"

He loosed his grasp on me, and struck one hand hard into the other.

"That I should see this, and have to tell it!" he said, and stepping to the table, he drank like one thirsty, and then fell to pacing the chamber. He seemed to be thinking slowly, as he wiped and plucked at his beard.

"What is it that ails you?" he asked. "Look you, this onfall and stratagem of war may not miscarry. Perdition take the fool, it is safe!"

"Have I been seeking safety since you knew me?" I asked.

"Verily no, and therefore I wonder at you the more; but you have been long sick, and men's minds are changeful. Consider the thing, nom Dieu! If there be no two lights shown from the mill, we step back silently, and all is as it was; the English have thought worse of their night onfall, or the Carmelite's message was ruse de guerre. But if we see the two lights, then the hundred English are attempting the taking of the mill; the St. Denis Gate is open for their return, and we are looked for by our Armagnacs within Paris. We risk but a short tussle with some drowsy pock- puddings, and then the town is ours. The Gate is as strong to hold against an enemy from within as from without. Why, man, run to Louis de Coutes, and beg a cast suit of the Maid's; she has plenty, for she is a woman in this, that dearly she loves rich attire."

"Randal," I said, "I will go with you, and the gladdest lad in France to be going, but I will go in my own proper guise as a man-at-arms. To wear the raiment of the Blessed Maid, a man and a sinner like me, I will in nowise consent; it is neither seemly nor honourable. Take your own way, put me under arrest if you will, and spoil my fortunes, and make me a man disgraced, but I will not wear her holy raiment. It is not the deed of a gentleman, or of a Christian."

He plucked at his beard. "I am partly with you," he said. "And yet it were a great bourde to play off on the English, and most like to take them and to be told of in ballad and chronicle, like one of Wallace's onfalls. For, seeing the Pucelle,