第42章 HOW NORMAN LESLIE WAS OUT OF ALL COMFORT(7)

It was even as I had deemed:my dear brother and friend and tutor of old days had died,charging back upon the English who pursued us,and fighting by the side of Pothon de Xaintrailles.All that day,and in the week which followed,my thought was ever upon him;a look in a stranger's face,a word on another's lips,by some magic of the mind would bring my brother almost visibly before me,ay,among the noise of swords on mail,and the screaming of arrows,and of great cannon-balls.

If I heard ill news,it was no more than I looked for;but better news,as it seemed,I also heard,though,in my sorrow,I marked it little.For the soldiers were lamenting the loss of their famed gunner,not John the Lorrainer,but one who had come to them,they said,now some weeks agone,in the guise of a cordelier,though he did not fight in that garb,but in common attire,and ever wore his vizor down,which men deemed strange.Whither he had gone,or how disappeared,they knew not,for he had not been with those who yesterday attacked St.Loup.

"He could never thole the thought of the Blessed Maid,"said Allan Rutherford,"but would tell all that listened how she was a brain-sick wench,or a witch,and under her standard he would never fight.

He even avowed to us that she had been a chamber-wench of an inn in Neufchateau,and there had learned to back a horse,and many a worse trick,"which was a lie devised by the English and them of Burgundy.

But,go where he would,or how he would,I deemed it well that Brother Thomas and I (for of a surety it was Brother Thomas)were not to meet in Orleans.

Concerning the English in this wonderful adventure of the siege,Ihave never comprehended,nor do I now know,wherefore they bore them as they did.That they sallied not out on the trains which the Maid led and brought into the town,a man might set down to mere cowardice and faint heart--they fearing to fight against a witch,as they deemed her.In later battles,when she had won so many a victory,they may well have feared her.But,as now,they showed no dread where honour was to be won,but rather pride and disdain.On this very Saturday,the morrow of our arrival,La Hire,with Florent d'Illiers and many other knights,pushed forth a matter of two bowshots from the city walls,and took a keep that they thought to have burned.They were very hardy men,and being comforted by the Maid's coming,were full of courage and goodwill;yet the English rallied and drove them back,with much firing of guns,and now first I heard the din of war and saw the great stone balls fly,scattering,as they fell,into splinters that screamed in the air,with a very terrible sound.Truly the English had the better of that fray,and were no whit adread,for at sunset the Maid sent them two heralds,bidding them begone;yet they answered only that they would burn her for a witch,and called her a ribaulde,or loose wench,and bade her go back and keep her kine.

I was with her when this message came,and her brows met and her eyes flashed with anger.Telling us of her company to follow,she went to the Fair Cross on the bridge,where now her image stands,fashioned in bronze,kneeling before the Cross,with the King kneeling opposite.There she stood and cried aloud to the English,who were in the fort on the other side of the bridge that is called Les Tourelles,and her voice rang across the water like a trumpet,so that it was marvel.Then came out on to the bridge a great knight and a tall,Sir William Glasdale;no bigger man have I seen,and I bethought me of Goliath in Holy Scripture.He spoke in a loud,north-country voice,and,whereas she addressed him courteously,as she did all men,he called her by the worst of names,mocking at her for a ribaulde.She made answer that he lied,and that he should die in four days'time or five,without stroke of sword;and so,waving her hand haughtily,turned and went back.But I,who walked close by her,noted that she wept like any girl at his evil and lying accusations.

Next day was Sunday,and no stroke was struck,but the Bastard of Orleans set forth to bring back the army from Blois.And on Monday the Maid rode out and under the very walls of the English keeps,the townsfolk running by her rein,as if secure in her company;yet no man came forth against them,which was marvel.And on the Wednesday,the Maid,with many knights,rode forth two leagues,and met the Bastard of Orleans and all the array from Blois,and all the flocks and herds that were sent to Orleans by the good towns.Right beneath the forts of the English they rode and marched,with chanting of hymns,priests leading the way,but none dared meddle with them.Yet a child might have seen that now or never was the chance:howbeit Talbot and Glasdale and Scales,men well learned in war,let fire not even a single cannon.It may be that they feared an attack of the Orleans folk on their bastilles,if they drew out their men.For,to tell the plain truth,the English had not men-at-arms enough for the task they took in hand;but they oft achieve much with but little force,and so presume the more,sometimes to their undoing.And,till the Maid came,ten of them could chase a hundred of the French.