Chapter 22 - Page 2

as they will deem, in our hands, they will think all safe, and welcome us open armed. O Norman, can we do nothing? Stop, will you wear another woman's short kirtle over your cuisses and taslet? She shall be no saint, I warrant you, but, for a sinner, a bonny lass and a merry. As a gentleman I deem this fair stratagem of war. If I were your own brother,--the Saints have his soul in their keeping,--I would still be of this counsel. Will you, my lad?"

He looked so sad, and yet withal so comical, that I held out my hand to him, laughing.

"Disguise me as you will," I said, "I have gone mumming as Maid Marion before now, in the Robin Hood play, at St. Andrews"; and as I spoke, I saw the tall thatched roofs of South Street, and the Priory Gates open, the budding elms above the garden wall of St. Leonard's, and all the May- day revel of a year agone pouring out into the good town.

"You speak like yourself now, bless your beardless face! Come forth," he said, taking a long pull at a tankard,--"that nothing might be wasted,"--and so we went to quarters, and Randal trudged off, soon coming back, laughing, with the red kirtle. Our men had been very busy furbishing up the red cross of St. George on their breasts, and stripping themselves of any sign of our own colours. As for my busking, never had maid such rough tire-women; but by one way or another, the apparel was accommodated, and they all said that, at a little distance of ground, the English would be finely fooled, and must deem that the Maid herself was being led to them captive.

It was now in the small hours of morning, dark, save for the glimmer of stars, here and there in a cloudy sky. Father Urquhart himself went up to the roof of the mill, to say his orisons, having with him certain faggots of pitch-wood, for lighting the beacon-fires if need were; and, as it chanced, braziers to this end stood ready on the roof, as is custom on our own Border keeps.

We Scots, a hundred in all, in English colours, with three or four as prisoners, in our own badges, fared cautiously, and with no word spoken, through dewy woods, or lurking along in dry ditches where best we might, towards the St. Denis Gate of Paris. I had never been on a night surprise or bushment before, and I marvelled how orderly the others kept, as men used to such work, whereas I went stumbling and blindlings. At length, within sight of the twinkling lights of Paris, and a hundred yards or thereby off the common way, we were halted in a little wood, and bidden to lie down; no man was so much as to whisper. Some slept, I know, for I heard their snoring, but for my part, I never was less in love with sleep. When the sky first grew grey, so that we could dimly see shapes of things, we heard a light noise of marching men on the road.

"The English!" whispered he that lay next me. "Hush!" breathed Randal, and so the