Bertrandfaltered as he was about to mount his horse and stood irresolute, like a man who repents of parting in anger from a friend. He thrust his spear into the grass, buckled the bridle round it, and went back towards Robin with a frown of thought upon his face. His promise to Tiphaïne had dared him to desert the lad, however much he might despise him for a weakling and a coward.
“Stand up, messire, I have some last words to say to you.”
Robin turned on his side, his green surcoat dew-drenched and muddy, and, propping himself upon one elbow, plucked at the grass.
“Ride on,” he growled; “let me be.”
“For the last time, Robin, will you go with me to Mivoie?”
“What! to have my brains beaten out by that brute Croquart? He has a grudge against me. Xaintré warned me to beware of the fellow.”
“A cool confession, messire.”
“Cool! Why should I be butchered for the sake of a crowd of wretched serfs?”
Bertrand looked at him as though half minded to pick the lad up and shake the terror out of him by sheer strength. But even Bertrand saw how useless it was to argue with such a quivering and sulky tangle of nerves. Young Raguenel was too soft and sensitive a creature to bear the rubs of the age he lived in. The stark fear of death was on him, and he was worse than an hysterical woman for the moment. Even if he were dragged to Josselin that night he would only disgrace himself at Mivoie on the morrow.
Bertrand turned on his heel, and began to march to and fro under the trees. Now and again he looked grimly, yet sorrowfully, at Robin, his eyes full of reproachfulness as he began to realize what the lad’s cowardice might mean. The words that he had spoken to Tiphaïne were sounding in his ears: “Trust me, and I will shield the lad even with my own body.” There was no shirking such a promise, and argue as he would the rough candor of his own conscience had him baffled at every point. What would Tiphaïne think of him if he left this loved but weak-willed brother to be shamed and dishonored in the knowledge of all Brittany? And Stephen Raguenel, that generous old man? The blow would kill him, and bring his white head down into the grave. Bertrand ground his teeth as he realized the bitterness of it all, and felt his own honor tangled in the fatal web of Robin’s fear.
Bertrand trampled the sodden grass till he had worn a muddy track under the beech-trees between Robin and the place where his horse was tethered. Never did Bertrand fight a tougher fight than he fought with himself that day on the road to Josselin. Renunciation, the higher courage, triumphed. Bertrand dashed his hand across his eyes, looked bitterly at the sword he had sharpened so lovingly and at the shield with the Du Guesclin blazonings thereon. Well, there was no help for it; he would sacrifice himself for this miserable boy; he had given Tiphaïne his promise. And as for his oath to Beaumanoir, he would both keep it and break it, and God would know the truth.
With the tussle ended, doubt and indecision had no more power over Bertrand’s will. He made no boast of the deed he was about to do, but marched to it boldly with a set mouth and an unflinching face.
“Off with your armor, lad; there is no time to lose.”
Robin stared as though Bertrand had commanded him to crawl out of his skin.
“Up with you!” and there was a ring of fierceness in the voice. “Strip off your armor; we must change our coats.”
Robin leaned upon one hand, eying Bertrand furtively, and not grasping his meaning for the moment.
“What will you do, messire?” he asked.
“Do!” and Bertrand’s lips curled as he unbuckled his graves and cuishes; “save you from shaming the folk who love you by taking your place at the Oak of Mivoie.”
Had the veriest spark of nobleness been left alive in him that moment, Robin would have risen up with generous shame, compelled towards courage by Bertrand’s chivalry. But the meaner powers were in the ascendant, and the dread of death made him blind to his own littleness. Even Bertrand saw the look of relief upon his face as he scrambled up, evading Du Guesclin’s eyes.
“Messire Bertrand, this is too good of you—”
A contortion of contempt swept over Bertrand’s face. The lad was pleased to approve the sacrifice and mildly call it “good.”
“Don’t thank me, messire. Take off your armor. We are much of a size. The fesse of silver shall make a show at Mivoie.”
Robin obeyed him, secret exultation stifling shame.
“I shall not forget this, Bertrand.”
“Nor shall I!”
“Beaumanoir will think that something has hindered you.”
“Ah, no doubt.”
Bertrand’s brows contracted as he gave the lad a look that should have let light into his soul. Robin seemed glib enough with his excuses.
“Do not think that I am doing this for your sake, Messire Robin Raguenel.”
“No?” and the coward looked astonished at the words.
“I am thinking of your father and your sister at La Bellière. They love you, Robin, and God knows I am loved by no one. Therefore, I remember the love they have for you, for no one will grieve if Bertrand du Guesclin gathers shame.”
Robin looked at him vacantly. So wrapped up was he in his own troubles that he did not realize the greatness of Bertrand’s sacrifice.
“Oh, it will work very well,” he stammered.
“You think so? Thanks.”
“We can say that your horse fell lame. And if you keep your visor down no one will know you. Besides, you are strong enough to fight any man who gives you the lie.”
Bertrand ground his teeth over the ease with which the lad contrived it all. By the blood of God! did the fool think that it was easy for a strong man to throw away the chance he had longed and prayed for? Bertrand knew what men would say of him, and that the public tongue is as uncharitable as it is false.
“Unbuckle my arm pieces.”
He rapped the words out as though the uttering of them gave him relief. Robin skipped forward to complete the sacrifice. He was still possessed by a blind and selfish joy.
“I will help to make the tale sound honest for you,” he said.
Bertrand’s shoulders heaved.
“You are quick enough with your wits,” he answered. “Come, listen to me. I know this road; there is a low inn not five miles from here, set back in an empty quarry. Hide there till we have fought at Mivoie.”
Bertrand was curt and peremptory enough; Robin understood him, and looked sullenly at the grass.
“What if you are killed?” he asked.
The utter coolness of the question staggered Bertrand, despite the revelations of the last hour.
“Who thinks of being killed!”
“Croquart will strike at you.”
“And am I afraid of Croquart? If I were to fall the trick would be discovered. You have scented that out, eh, you little fox! No, lie quiet in your hole till I ride back.”
“And then?”
Bertrand bit his lips.
“God knows, so far as I am concerned!” he said.
In half an hour the transformation was complete. He took Robin’s shield upon his arm (the fesse argent on an azure ground), but kept his own horse and his heavy axe that hung at the saddle-bow. Robin melted somewhat when the time for parting came. He tried to embrace Du Guesclin, but Bertrand would have none of the lad’s gratitude.
“Off, sir, you owe me nothing; it is your father’s honor that I cherish, and the vow I made your sister. Keep up the mockery, messire: you are Bertrand du Guesclin, skulking in the woods of Loudeac.”
And with a grim face he climbed into the saddle and, pricking in the spurs, went off at a canter.
When he had gone Robin sat down sullenly under a tree and watched Bertrand disappear over the open moor. He was beginning to hate himself, yet his gross cowardice still held him firmly by the throat. Rising at last, he took his lame horse and began to lead the beast wearily along the road, for Bertrand’s armor was heavy on him, and his heart sick over the whole coil. But Bertrand rode eastward over the moors, bearing Robin’s shield, and thinking of Tiphaïne and the shame she would hear of him.
TheJosselin Moors were golden with gorse and broom when Beaumanoir’s banner, with its eleven argent billets on an azure ground, was unfurled beneath the Oak of Mivoie. He had ridden out from Josselin with the seigneurs and mesne lords who had gathered to the place, the champions of Mivoie being marked out from the rest by wearing broom flower in their helmets. With the Marshal rode the Sieur de Tinteniac, as noble a gentleman as ever feutred a spear; Geoffroi Dubois, called by some “The Wolf”; Sir Yves de Charrual, Carro de Bodegat, and many more. A great rabble of peasantry followed them over the moors, beating up the dust from the highway with the tramp of their many feet. Along the road they were joined by knots of people—village flocks, each following its parish priest. The heart of all Brittany was in the combat, and the faint pealing of the bells of Josselin borne on the western wind seemed to speak forth the passion of the poor.
Beaumanoir’s trumpets were screaming when Bertrand came trotting over the moors towards the oak. He had tarried late in Josselin for the safeguarding of his deceit, meaning to take his place in the ranks at the last hour. Twice that morning he had nearly been discovered—once by a Breton captain who had recognized his voice, and again by one of his old free companions loitering outside an inn. Bertrand had taken to the open moors, passing the groups of hurrying peasant folk on his way, and waving his shield to them as they cheered Sir Robin of Dinan riding to keep troth with the Sieur de Beaumanoir.
There was much bracing of armor and handling of weapons when Bertrand pushed through the press towards the oak. He had left his horse close by with some peasants on the moor, and a herald was calling the roll of those chosen. Robin Raguenel’s name was shouted out as Bertrand came up with his visor down. He waved Robin’s shield above his head, so that the fesse of silver should speak for itself.
Bertrand drew back under the boughs of the oak, and pretended to be busy bracing up his armor. Over the moors he could see the English spears glinting in the sunlight along the road from Ploermel. They came on gallantly, these dreaded English, with Bamborough’s banner blowing in the van. Bertrand’s eyes wandered towards the silent peasant folk gathered like sheep upon the moors. He took heart as he thought how these men of the soil had suffered, and that he was not fighting for mere selfish fame. The broader issue quenched for the moment the smart and bitterness of his own self-sacrifice.
“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin.”
It was the herald’s voice calling his name, and Bertrand had been waiting for that cry for hours. He stood up and looked round calmly at the burnished bassinets and painted shields, feeling like a man who watches his own burial in a dream. A second time he heard the herald call his name, and saw the knights and squires look questioningly from man to man. Silence had fallen under the great oak. The Sieur de Beaumanoir was speaking to the gentlemen about him, and in the lull Bertrand could hear their words.
“I am loath to mistrust the man, yet he has failed us and sent no warning.”
“A mere spoil-hunting vagabond,” said Yves de Charrual. “I know the fellow.”
“The oath was given him by Xaintré.”
“True; then this is treachery.”
“The dog shall have the truth from me,” quoth Carro de Bodegat, a flamboyant gentleman whom Bertrand had once wounded in a duel.
Bertrand stood by in Robin’s armor, grinding his teeth as he listened to all they said. How ready they were to damn him as a traitor, these proud ones who had never known how long he had waited for such a chance as this! Even his doggedness could hardly take their taunts in silence; he longed to throw his visor up and give Charrual and Bodegat the lie. Only one lord spoke up for him before the rest, the Sieur de Tinteniac, asking why a brave man should be slandered without full knowledge of the truth. Bertrand loved Tinteniac for these words, and vowed in his heart that they should be repaid.
Meanwhile Beaumanoir had called an esquire forward, Guillaume de Montauban by name, and given him the honor that Du Guesclin had forfeited. Bertrand stood listening to the casual ignominy that was being flung by those about him at his courage. Even when challenged as Robin Raguenel, and asked for a judgment concerning his own honor, he grimaced behind his visor, and answered gruffly that he would not condemn a Breton man unheard.
The sacrament of the mass came to silence all these cavilling tongues. Bertrand knelt with the rest, grim and silent, wondering whether Robin guessed how much this ordeal meant to him. He covered the mezail of his bassinet with his hand when he lifted the visor and took the bread. His one prayer was that this dallying should not be long, for he was fierce and ready for the English swords. Soon the Gloria had been sung, and the priest, facing eastward under the oak, had offered the Gratio ad Complendum.
“Ite, missa est!” came the cry. And a hundred strong voices shouted, “Deo Gratias!”
The English were drawn up where the highway to Ploermel broadened into a smooth stretch of grass and sand. Croquart and five Netherlanders were to fight for Bamborough, also four Bretons, for the true-born English mustered but twenty. Bamborough, who had stood laughing and jesting while the Bretons were hearing mass, turned to his “thirty,” and gave them his last words.
“Sirs,” he said, “I have read in Merlin’s books that we shall have the victory. Let us kill or take Beaumanoir and his men and carry them prisoners to Edward our king.”
Beaumanoir, more devout and less boastful, kissed the cross of his sword, and held it high above his head.
“Friends, may God make us increase in virtue. Keep a good countenance, and hold fast together.”
The sun streamed out from behind a cloud when the two bristling banks of steel surged towards each other over the heather. St. George and St. Ives, good saints, were hailed perforce into the struggle. The dust smoked up into the sunlight so that those who watched the fight could see but vaguely how matters sped. Sword and axe, mace and bill, clashed and tossed like the play of counter-currents in some narrow strait. Shields were cloven, plumes shorn away, men thrown down and trampled underfoot. Through the drifting dust the armed figures flashed like flames struggling through a pall of smoke.
From the first rush the English party had the upper hand, being bigger men and more hardened to the trade of arms. Croquart the Fleming broke to and fro, charging like a boar, hurling men aside, and making the shields and steel plates ring with the thunder of his heavy mace. He hunted out Bertrand in the press, and beat him down with a side blow on the bassinet. It was the Sieur de Tinteniac who sprang forward over Bertrand’s body, and held Croquart back till the fesse of silver shone out again.
“Grace to you, sire!” And Bertrand flew at the Fleming with his axe, but lost his man in the shifting of the fight.
For two full hours the moil went on till sheer exhaustion forced the wolves of war apart. They drew back to gain breath, some dazed like men half drunk, leaning on each other, grasping and staggering over the heath. Two Bretons were dead, many wounded, and three prisoners under Bamborough’s banner. The honor as yet was with the English; even Bertrand confessed it grudgingly as he leaned upon his axe.
The Sieur de Tinteniac came stumbling up to him, his visor up, his face gray, his eyes glazed.
“Give me a prop, Robin,” he said; “I have no breath in me. Curse these English, they have the devil in their bodies.”
Bertrand put his arm about Tinteniac’s body, his heart warm towards the man who had spoken for him before the rest.
“Wait, sire,” he said, grinding his teeth, “we have not finished with Bamborough yet.”
Tinteniac leaned on him, looking curiously at the eyes that showed through the visor.
“You sound hoarse as an old hound, Robin,” he said.
“My throat is dry,” and Bertrand turned away his head.
On came the English, massed in a solid wedge of steel. Tinteniac roused himself, their shouts stirring him like the scream of a trumpet. Bertrand kept close to him, knowing that the strong man was weak and wounded, and that he could cover him with Robin’s shield.
In the thick of the fight Bamborough of Ploermel had grappled the Sieur de Beaumanoir, and was dragging him by sheer strength from the mêlée.
“Surrender, Beaumanoir! I’ll send you a prisoner to my lady love!”
Bertrand and Tinteniac sprang forward for a rescue, Du Guesclin bringing the governor of Ploermel to earth with a down stroke of his axe. Tinteniac’s sword ended the argument; Bamborough’s head fell away from the hacked and bleeding neck.
Beaumanoir had freed himself, and was up, shaking his sword.
“St. Ives,” he cried, “Bamborough is dead! Courage, Bretons, and the day is ours!”
Croquart the Fleming seized on Bamborough’s authority, and, closing up his men, charged the Bretons and bore them slowly back. Strive as they would, Bertrand and the stoutest of them were driven to the very shadow of the great oak. The crowd of watchers went swaying and scrambling back from the eddying ripples of that pool of death. The sweat and clangor awed the peasantry, though a hoarse shout of despair went up when the Sieur de Beaumanoir’s banner lurched down into the dust.
Then came a second pause for breath, the English waiting like dogs to make their last dash at the wounded stag. Beaumanoir, drenched with blood, his strength failing because of the fast he had kept before mass, leaned upon Bodegat and called for wine.
“Drink your own blood, Beaumanoir!” cried Dubois, half mad with his wounds. “Courage, sirs, there is hope in us yet!”
It was then that young Guillaume de Montauban, whom Beaumanoir had chosen, ran away towards his horse, his comrades cursing him for a coward as he stumbled over the moor.
“Take care of your own work,” shouted the youngster, as he scrambled into the saddle, “and I, before God, will take care of mine!”
He swung round and, thrusting in the spurs, rode for the English at a gallop. His heavy horse broke through with a crash, scattering the war dogs, and leaving many floundering, cumbered and weighed down by their heavy harness. Geoffroi Dubois sprang forward as he grasped the ruse. The Bretons, rallying together, charged down upon the English before they could recover. The wedge of steel was rent asunder, the men whom Montauban had overthrown made easy prisoners as they struggled to rise.
Croquart and a few fought on until the end, but, hemmed in and outnumbered, they surrendered sullenly to Beaumanoir.
“Well, sirs, you have won by treachery,” said Calverly, throwing down his sword. And though the Bretons shouted him into silence, there was the sting of truth in the “free companion’s” words.
Bertrand, bleeding from a sword-cut in the thigh, forced his way through the peasant folk who came crowding over the moors. Some of them clung round him, and kissed his shield and harness, even the bloody axe he carried in his hand. Bertrand forced them aside as gently as he could, and marched on towards the heather-clad knoll where two country fellows were holding his horse. He heard a voice calling him as he climbed into the saddle, and, turning, saw the Sieur de Tinteniac staggering over the heath. Bertrand had saved Tinteniac’s life more than once in the last struggle, and the brave fellow was eager to take the supposed Robin by the hand.
Bertrand wavered a moment as he remembered how Tinteniac had spoken up for him before them all. Then, waving his hand, he clapped in the spurs, and went at a canter over the moors to Josselin.
Hungry and weary as he was, he rode into the town to get food and wine at an inn. Men, women, and children, who had been watching on the walls, came crowding round him at the gate. A man-at-arms had read Bertrand’s shield, and it was noised from mouth to mouth that Sir Robin of Dinan had ridden back from Mivoie.
“News, messire! What news?”
Bertrand looked down at the eager, crowding faces, and saw the ripple of exultation that spread about him as he threw them the good news like a stone into a pool. Some went down on their knees and prayed; others jigged to and fro like roisterers at a fair; even the children shouted and clapped their hands.
Freeing himself with difficulty from the people, Bertrand broke away down a side street and drew up before a common tavern. The place was empty save for one old woman, who served Bertrand as he sat in the dirty room, pondering on the irony of it all—that he should be the man to bring the good news to Josselin. Begging linen from the old woman, he unbuckled the cuishe from his right thigh, poured in wine, and bound up the wound. Then he gave the dame some money, mounted his horse, and rode for the western gate.
All Josselin was in an uproar as Bertrand trotted through the streets. Mounted men had come in from Mivoie, cheering and waving branches of broom. Bells were pealing, townsfolk and peasantry shouting and crowding in the narrow streets. They thronged round Bertrand and nearly dragged him from his horse, striving to touch even his surcoat and armor, and shouting their blessings on Sir Robin of Dinan. Bertrand, facing the mockery of it all, won through them patiently, and came to the gate that led towards Loudeac.
“Du Guesclin played the coward” were the last words he heard as he rode from Josselin towards the west.
Eveninghad come when Bertrand neared the quarry on the road to Loudeac, where Robin Raguenel lay hid. A path ran from the main track and wound through the woods, leaving the open moorland sweeping—a wave of gold into the west. It was one of those rare passings of the day in spring when strangeness and mystery were everywhere, brooding on the dream hills against the splendid sky, watching for the night in the windless woodways of the forest. The song of the birds went up towards the sunset, tumultuous, and borne upon the wings of joy. Yet to Bertrand the beauty of it all was but a mockery, even as the dawn mocks the eyes of a man dying in his youth.
The inn, a mere hovel with rotting thatch and sagging beams, stood at the mouth of the quarry with a dirty stable yard behind it. The greater part of the quarry was tangled with brushwood, a few patches of coarse grass closing in a strip of shallow soil where the inn folk grew their vegetables. A Breton lass, brown-legged and bare-armed, was hoeing in the garden when Bertrand rode up towards the inn. Robin, sitting on a block of stone, was talking to the girl, making love to her for lack of else to do. The girl’s black eyes and insolent mouth were charms that might make a man forget for the moment thoughts that were troubling to his conscience. She returned Robin as good as he gave, laughing, and tossing back her hair as she plied her hoe, her bare feet sinking into the soil.
Bertrand, riding into the dirty yard behind the inn, broke like an unwelcome elder brother upon Robin philandering with this Breton Hebe. A few ragged chickens scurried away from Bertrand’s horse. An ass brayed at him over the door of a byre, and a couple of pigs rooting in the offal went grunting surlily towards a dung heap.
Bertrand looked round him, saw the girl leaning on her hoe, one hand stretched out to slap the boyish face that had ventured near in quest of favors. She dropped her hoe on catching sight of the strange knight in the yard, and came forward to take his horse. An old woman appeared at the back door of the inn, and screamed peevishly at her daughter. Bertrand dismounted and let the girl tether his horse to a post in the yard.
Robin Raguenel had recognized his own shield with a start and a flush, the amorous glint gone from his eyes in a moment. His sulky face betrayed the meaner thoughts that had been working in his heart, and that he had dreaded the hour of Du Guesclin’s return. He had begun to hate Bertrand because Bertrand had been a witness of his shame. He hated him for the very sacrifice he had made, his ungenerous and thin-blooded nature revolting at the thought that Bertrand held him in his power. The debt had transformed Robin into a mean and grudging enemy. Self-pity and disgust at his own impotence had destroyed any feeling such as gratitude, and he was ready to quarrel with the man who had renounced so much to save him.
Bertrand left his horse with the girl and went towards Robin, who was digging his heels into the turf and looking as though he would have given much to escape the meeting. He made no pretence of welcome, but stood sulky and ill at ease, all the rebellious littleness of his soul puffing itself out against the man who had made him such a debtor.
Bertrand, puzzled, and suspecting nothing in the breadth and simplicity of his heart, scanned Robin’s face, finding no gladness thereon, no gratitude in the eyes.
“So you have come back?”
The antagonism was instinctive in those few curt words. Bertrand’s out-stretched hand dropped. He looked hard at Robin, as though baffled by the lad’s manner.
“We have beaten the English,” he said, quietly.
“Have you?”
“Yes; not a man discovered the trick. The honor of the De Bellières stands as it stood before.”
Probably it was the ring of reproach in Bertrand’s voice that stung the lad through his sullen reserve. He took five sharp paces forward, and stood grimacing, and beating one foot upon the grass.
“So, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, you flatter yourself that you have done a brave thing!”
Bertrand stared at him.
“I have saved your honor,” he said, bluntly.
“Of course! of course!”
“And heard myself cursed for a coward and a traitor.”
Robin swung round, and began to pad to and fro, his face dead white, his teeth working against his lips. He was mad with Bertrand, mad with himself, mad with fate for having twisted him into such a corner. It never entered his head for the moment that Bertrand had suffered, and would suffer yet more.
“You expect me to grovel at your feet, messire,” he blurted.
Bertrand flushed under his bassinet.
“I have not asked for your thanks, Robin.”
“No, and I tell you that I have cursed myself because, like a fool, I let you have my arms.”
Bertrand’s face went hard as stone. He looked at Robin, and understood of a sudden that the lad loathed him now that his honor had been saved at Mivoie. He felt himself in Bertrand’s power, and had not the magnanimity to confess that the whole tangled coil was of his own weaving. Bertrand gulped down his scorn as he realized the truth.
“Your courage comes two days late,” said Bertrand, holding his anger back.
Robin whipped round on him like a wild-cat at bay.
“Curse you! Why did you meddle with me? Curse Beaumanoir, curse Bamborough and his English! I should have fought at Mivoie if my damned horse had not fallen lame.”
Bertrand’s lips curled.
“Don’t blame the poor beast, Robin,” he said.
“Ha, you call me a liar! I tell you, messire, I never lamed my horse. It was your doubting me that cut me to the quick. And then when you had wounded me in the heart you scoffed and sneered. I tell you it was your taunts that took my strength away at Loudeac.”
He jigged to and fro in his hysterical fury, spluttering, snapping his teeth, jerking his arms about. It was plain enough to Bertrand whence all this froth and ferment came. The lad was mad with him for what he had done and also for what he knew.
“Come,” he said, quietly, bolting up his scorn. “Come, Robin, I never thought to hear you speak like this.”
Robin still chattered like an angry ape.
“No, no; you thought I should grovel and fall at your knees, eh! Yes, you are a fine fellow, Bertrand du Guesclin, but, by God, I am not going to wallow at your feet! Give me back my armor; give me back my armor, and be damned to you! Go and tell all the duchy that Robin Raguenel played the coward.”
Bertrand looked at him as Christ might have looked at Judas. The lad’s squealing passion filled him with bitterness and disgust. It was difficult to believe that this was Tiphaïne’s brother.
“Fool,” he said, speaking with a self-control that was fiercer than any clamor, “it is for those who love you that I have done this thing! What shame I bear, I bear it for their sakes, not for yours. Take back your arms. I shall suffer for them long enough.”
He took Robin’s shield, scarred and dented by the English swords at Mivoie, and threw it on its face at Robin’s feet. Then, without a word, he began to unbuckle the borrowed harness, piling it on the grass beside the shield. Robin watched him, biting his nails, the futile fury dying down in him like a fire built of straw. The scorn of Bertrand’s silence sobered him as he idled to and fro not daring to offer to help Bertrand to disarm.
The girl looked out at them inquisitively from the back door of the inn. Robin shouted to her, bidding her bring the armor that lay in his room. She drew her white face in, and returned anon with Bertrand’s shield slung about her neck, her arms and bosom full of steel. Bertrand glanced up at her, and at the sight of his ugly face, made more grim and terrible by its pent-up passion, she dropped the armor with a clatter on the grass and, throwing down the shield, skipped away, after darting out her tongue at Robin. Bertrand had put off the last piece of young Raguenel’s harness. He stood up and stretched himself, and tightened the bandage about his thigh.
Robin’s face had grown weak and irresolute once more. His blood had cooled, and he remembered how much he lay at Bertrand’s mercy.
“You are wounded,” he blurted, seizing the chance of breaking the reserve of this grim and silent man.
Bertrand picked up his hauberk, but did not look at Robin.
“Take my wallet,” he said, curtly.
The lad gave him a vacant stare.
“There, on the saddle. Get the folk within to fill it.”
Robin loitered a moment, but, finding that Bertrand paid no heed to him, he slunk away across the yard towards the place where Bertrand’s horse was tethered. When he returned, after having the wallet filled at the inn, Bertrand stood again in his own armor, with the eagle of the Du Guesclins on his arm. He pointed Robin back towards the horse.
“Strap the bag on; get water, and a feed of corn.”
“Messire Bertrand, I am not your groom.”
A look persuaded him. Robin parleyed no further, but turned to feed and water Du Guesclin’s horse. Bertrand came and watched him at the work, silent and unapproachable, ignoring Robin’s restless glances and his jerky and almost cringing manner.
“What am I to say to them at La Bellière?”
“What you will.”
Robin lifted up the bucket for the horse to drink. His eyes were half dim with tears, his mouth weak and petulant.
“Won’t you help me, Messire Bertrand?”
“To keep up the lie, eh!”
Robin hung his head.
“You must know how we won the day at Mivoie, and how Sir Robin Raguenel saved the honor of Brittany.”
Robin winced, flushed like a girl, but stood listening while Bertrand told him all that had passed at Mivoie: who were slain, who were wounded and taken prisoners, how Tinteniac and Beaumanoir fought, and how Montauban broke the English ranks. Robin heard all without one flash of pride or gladness. Humiliation was heavy on him, and he had no joy in this Breton victory. When Bertrand had made an end, he stood with the empty bucket dangling in his hand, listless, and without will.
“Bertrand”—Du Guesclin’s foot was in the stirrup—“where—where are you going?”
The strong man drew a deep breath, but mastered himself in an instant.
“Where God wills,” he said.
He lifted himself into the saddle, setting his teeth as his wound twinged, and, turning his horse, rode out from the yard. Robin stood like one in a stupor. It was only when the eagle of the Du Guesclins flashed out to meet the sunset that he gave a shrill cry and sprang after Bertrand, holding out his hands.
“Bertrand! Bertrand!”
Du Guesclin did not turn his head. Robin ran on and caught him by the stirrup.
“Bertrand, forgive me; I will tell the truth—”
“Back, lad, back.”
“Bertrand!”
Du Guesclin clapped in the spurs, and, bending down, tore Robin’s hand from the stirrup.
“We have thrown the dice,” he said, “and the throw must count. Go back to La Bellière; the truth is safe with me.”
He cantered off, leaving Robin alone before the inn, mute and miserable as he thought of the lies he had made for his own mouth.
AtLa Bellière the Vicomte’s trumpeters stood in the great court betwixt the hall and the gate-house, and set the walls and turrets ringing.
“Mivoie! Mivoie! Mivoie!” the echoes wailed. “Mivoie! Mivoie!” croaked the jackdaws that roosted in the great octagonal chimneys. “Mivoie!” cried the serving-men, as they carried the lavers and napkins into the hall. La Bellière kept festival in Robin’s honor, and every scullion in the kitchen had pieces of silver in his pocket.
The Vicomte’s neighbors, unlike the folk in Biblical history, had ridden in to give the old man joy of his son. There was much washing of hands in the great hall, where the basins were being carried round before the meal by the Vicomte’s servants. The tables were covered with white napery, the walls hung with rich cloth and embroidered hangings, the floor strewn with fresh rushes, primroses, wind flowers, and wild violets. Robin, dressed in a surcoat of green stuff threaded through with gold and with a posy of bay leaves tucked into his girdle, sat in the place of honor at the high table. Tiphaïne, in white samite worked with gold, had come down the stairway from the solar, looking joyous and splendid, with the dames and maidens following in their silks and sarcenets. There were lute-players and men with viols and citherns in the gallery. The trumpets rang out as the servants came in from the screens, bearing the dishes garnished with bays and herbs to the tables.
The Breton gentry had pressed about Robin and his father, pleasing old Stephen in the praising of his son. Robin, feeling like a thief, had made light of the whole matter, meeting almost with impatience the flattery they gave him. He was glad when Father Guillaume stood up to say grace, pattering out his Latin to the edification of few. Stephen Raguenel stood with his hand upon Robin’s shoulder. When Father Guillaume had blessed the puddings—and craved a lively appetite from heaven—the Vicomte lifted his son’s shield, and showed the battered fesse of silver with all the pride of a paternal Jove.
“The grace of our Lady and the blessings of the saints be with you, kinsmen and friends,” he said. “Look at this shield, and you may see how God has blessed me in sending my lad safe through such a shower of blows.”
Robin, fidgeting from foot to foot, felt the eyes of all fixed upon his face. What a terror it was to fear the glances of his fellows and to imagine doubt in every heart! He passed for a modest fellow by reason of his blushes, the men liking him no less because he seemed not to relish the way the Vicomte trumpeted his valor. Robin frowned when his father called for the mazer bowl, enamelled with the arms of the De Bellières and banded with silver. Stephen Raguenel held it in both hands and pledged Robin, and sent the mazer round the tables that the guests might drink good luck to his son. On the silver band of the mazer were engraved the words, “Keep troth,” and Robin remembered them, to his cost.
The devil mocked Robin Raguenel that day, taunting him even from his father’s happy face, and turning to scorn the pride in Tiphaïne’s eyes. “Mivoie! Mivoie! Mivoie!” screamed the trumpets in the court, till Robin sent a servant to tell the men to cease their din. Wine came to him, and he drank it, feverishly, fiercely, yet feeling his tongue dry with the lies he had poured into his father’s ears. Behind him, held by a man-at-arms, shone the shield that Bertrand du Guesclin had carried.
Yeolande of Lehon, Robin’s betrothed, sat next him at the high table and ate from the same plate. The girl was very proud of her man before them all, and took no pains to disguise her pride. Her very enthusiasm refined Robin’s torture, for she could not hear enough of the fight at Mivoie, and pestered the lad till he could have cursed her to her face. “How many men had he killed?” “Who were the bravest among the Bretons?” “Who were knighted?” “Would the Sieur de Beaumanoir die of his wounds?” Robin, half mad with inward terror and vexation, described twenty things he had never seen, and tangled his wits in a veritable web of fiction.
The great “ship” was rolling along the table on its gilt wheels, ladened with sweetmeats and spices, when Sir Raoul de Resay, a kinsman of Robin’s, leaned forward across Yeolande’s bosom, and touched Robin’s arm with the silver handle of his knife.
“Messire, a word with you,” he said.
Robin turned to him, ready to be accused at any moment of being a liar and a coward.
“Is it true what they are saying of Bertrand du Guesclin?”
“True! What are they saying, messire?”
Robin was as red as the wine in his cup.
“Why, that Bertrand played the coward and never came to Mivoie.”
Raoul de Resay’s eyes marked Robin’s flushed cheeks and the tremulous movement of his lips. He misread the meaning of the lad’s hot color, thinking that it was the badge royal of a generous heart.
“No, by God, Raoul, Bertrand du Guesclin did not play the coward! His horse fell lame near Loudeac. I left him in the woods there, and have not seen him since.”
Yeolande of Lehon touched Robin’s arms.
“I like to see you flush up like that,” she said, “when a brother in arms is slandered.”
“Slandered! Who spoke of slander, madame?” And Raoul de Resay took the taunt to heart. “I have known cowards, but Bertrand du Guesclin is not one of them.”
For three long hours Robin suffered from the good-will of his friends, and even when La Bellière was free of them, the lad still had his father to torment him with affection. Stephen Raguenel had the ways and whims of an old man. Like a child, he was never tired of hearing the same tale retold. Robin was dragged into the solar, held at bay in the broad window-seat, and catechised tenderly till the truth itself was torn to tatters. The lad writhed inwardly under the ordeal, finding each lie the more bitter to his lips. He escaped from the old man at last, and went out into the orchard, letting his hot face cool in the wind.
It was under the apple-trees that Tiphaïne found him, tossing twigs into the pool that reflected the budding bloom above. Robin had said no word to her of Bertrand’s breaking of his oath. She had heard it spoken of for the first time at the high table by Raoul de Resay and others. Hot and angry, she had given the lie to young Prosper of Dinan, who had called Bertrand a coward, and had silenced those who cavilled thoughtlessly at Du Guesclin’s honor.
Robin saw her through the trees and cursed her to himself, guessing that his hypocrisy was to be tested once more. Tiphaïne did not see the spasm of pain that passed across her brother’s face. She was troubled for Bertrand, and angry when she remembered how the spruce young squires had sat in lordly and complacent judgment on a man whom not one of them would have dared to face in arms.
“Robin, they tell me Bertrand did not fight at Mivoie.”
Robin groaned in spirit, and marched out the weary troop of lies once more, watching his sister’s face as she stood leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree. He saw that she was troubled, and, like the guilty coward that he was, began to wonder whether she suspected him.
“Robin, this is bad news to me.”
The lad was breaking twigs from a bough above his head.
“You do not know how much this meant to Bertrand! He had prayed for such honor—prayed for it night and day.”
So absorbed was she for the moment that the rush of shame into her brother’s eyes passed unnoticed. Tiphaïne had turned and stood looking at the pool, whose still waters reflected the apple-boughs and the burning clouds above.
Robin recovered himself and began to whistle.
“A man cannot help a lame horse,” he said.
“A lame horse would not keep Bertrand from Mivoie.”
Robin stopped his whistling, and appeared absorbed in watching the hovering of a hawk above the fields. The bird’s wings were palpitating in the light of the setting sun. She swooped suddenly and dropped from sight below the trees.
“Something has happened to Bertrand.”
Robin started, and pretended not to have understood her.
“Happened!”
“Yes. Bertrand would rather have died than break troth at such an hour.”
The tortures of the day seemed to culminate for Robin at that moment. He had always feared his sister in a measure, and stood half in awe of her stronger will and the unflinching candor of her eyes. Her words were innocent enough, and yet they seemed like knots of steel that wring the truth from some wretch judged to the torture.
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“Perhaps. How should I know? I have had no news of Bertrand since I left him in the woods by Loudeac.”
For the first time Tiphaïne noticed the curious restlessness of her brother’s eyes.
“Robin, you are not yourself.”
He laughed and swept his hand through his hair.
“I spent too much of myself at Mivoie. I am dead tired. What can you expect?”
She looked at him keenly, knitting her brows a little, as though she had caught a falseness in his words.
“Robin, are you hiding anything from me?”
“Hiding! What should I hide?” and his eyes flashed out at her.
“How did Bertrand’s horse fall lame?”
“Stabbed in the foot by a stake.”
“And then?”
“I had to leave him. On my soul, Tiphaïne, I am not a prophet. I cannot tell you what I do not know.”
They heard the Vicomte’s voice calling them from the house, and Robin, trembling like a man saved from death, clutched at the reprieve, and walked back through the orchard. Tiphaïne followed him, slowly, thoughtfully, playing with her silver-sheathed poniard, her eyes fixed upon the ground. Some instinct warned her that Robin had not given her the truth, and she was troubled for Bertrand, wondering what had hindered him from keeping troth with Beaumanoir.
It was the third night after he had left Robin that Bertrand, who had eaten nothing all day, saw the flicker of a fire shining through the trees before him. The cloud of fatalism had thickened about him as the night came down over the tangled woodways of the forest. All the past had risen up before him: the savage sorrows of his boyhood, the coming of Tiphaïne the child, the tournament at Rennes. The years of rough adventure he had spent had seemed only to taunt him with failure and with bitterness. He had thought also of dead Arletta, and how the poor child had died in the autumn deeps of dark Broceliande. Brooding on the past, he had come to think that God’s wrath was heavy on him, and that he was cursed, like Cain, because of his stubborn heart. He had ridden on and on, letting his horse bear him where it would, feeling neither thirst nor hunger nor the weight of his heavy harness. He had drawn out his poniard and felt the point thereof calmly, sullenly, with a balancing of the evils of life and death. He still held the knife in his hand when he sighted the fire, the flames upcurled like the petals of a great flower.
Bertrand reined in and sat motionless in the saddle, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Possibly there was something elemental in the red and restless play thereof, something that flashed comfort into Bertrand’s heart. He clapped his poniard back into its sheath and rode on slowly, his jaded horse pricking up his ears and tugging at the bridle as though scenting water.
Three figures started up from about the fire as Bertrand rode out from under the shadows of the trees. He could see that they were peasants, two men and a girl, and that they were as shy and timid as hunted deer. The younger of the two men brandished a short cudgel, but there was no fight in the poor devils; the English wars had broken the spirit of the Breton poor.
Bertrand shouted to them and waved his hand, wondering at the hoarseness of his own voice.
“A friend! a friend!”
He rode up towards the fire, the light flashing on his armor and weaving giant shadows about his horse. The peasants kept their distance, dread of the mailed fist inbred in their hearts.
Bertrand showed them the eagle on his shield.
“Come, I am a Breton man; you need not run from me. I want food and a place by your fire.”
They came forward grudgingly, one to hold his horse, the other to help him from the saddle. So stiff and faint was he that Bertrand staggered when he touched the earth, and sank down with a groan beside the fire.
The two men stood staring at him stupidly, and it was the girl whose instinct answered to the appeal. She knelt down by Bertrand, to find that he had fainted, his face showing gray and haggard through the mezail of his bassinet. She called to the two men, and they brought her a stone flask full of cider, and helped her to unfasten the laces of Bertrand’s helmet. The girl sat down and lifted Bertrand’s head into her lap. She poured some of the cider between his lips, the woman in her pitying him and taking charge of his wounded manhood. She was still bending over him when Bertrand recovered consciousness, and he felt her hands smoothing back his hair. Rough and toil-lined as her face was, there was something soft and gentle in the eyes. Above him hung this peasant woman’s face—one warm touch against the stolid darkness of the forest. And what did Bertrand do but break down and weep.
The girl held his head in her lap awhile, wonderingly and in silence, till he struggled up, and, looking round him shamefacedly, asked surlily for food. They gave him coarse bread, swine’s flesh, and more cider. He ate ravenously, saying nothing, the peasants watching him, awed by a something they did not understand. Presently Bertrand pointed to his horse; the men caught his meaning, and went to unsaddle the beast and give him water. The girl had turned away, and was throwing sticks upon the fire.
Bertrand called to her when he had finished the last crust that they had given him.
“Child, come hither.”
She turned and stood silent before him, while Bertrand fumbled for the purse he carried at his belt.
“Your name; tell it me.”
“Marie, lording—Marie of the Marshes.”
Bertrand threw her money, with a twist of the hand.
“Take it for the food; God’s blessing go with it. You have done me good, child; now let me sleep.”
And sleep he did, like one of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
The dawn was breaking when Bertrand woke beside the peasant’s fire and heard the birds singing in the thickets. A soft haze of light filled the east, and there were mottlings of crimson above the trees. Bertrand lay still awhile, watching the gold glint of the sunrise through the crowded trunks, while the dew glittered on the green turf and the birds sang lustily. He found that the peasant folk had covered him with an old cloak, and that simple touch of sympathy went to Bertrand’s heart.
The girl Marie came out of the woods singing a Breton song and carrying a bundle of sticks in her bosom. She threw them on the fire, and looked at Bertrand as he sat up and felt his wounded thigh. The night’s rest had put new strength and courage into him. He was no longer the fatalist drugged with the opiate of despair. The golden splendor of the woods, the blue sky, the glistening dew gave a sparkle to life and stirred the joy of being in him.
Scrambling up, he thanked the girl for the cloak, and, looking round him, asked for his horse. Marie of the Marshes pointed to where the beast was tethered, under the shadow of a great beech. Some fifty yards away Bertrand saw a stream flashing through clumps of rushes and tufts of waving sedge. He went down to it and dashed water over his face and neck, finding his wound less painful and the muscles less stiff and sore.
As he walked back to the fire the two peasants came out of the woods with a couple of rabbits they had snared. Bertrand turned to them like an old campaigner and helped the fellows to skin the rabbits and sling an iron pot over the fire. They lost their shyness as he worked with them, for there was a frankness in Bertrand’s manner that appealed to these men of the soil.
They were in the middle of the meal, seated round the fire, with the girl Marie next to Bertrand, when they heard a shout from the woods and saw a bandy-legged old fellow, very ragged and dirty, running towards them over the grass. He had a holly-wood cudgel in his hand, and was followed by a dog that looked more like a wolf, with its long snout, lean build, and bristling coat. The girl started up and kissed the old man on the mouth, a duty that Bertrand did not envy her. After bobbing his head to Bertrand, he came and sat himself down by the fire, while Marie fished a rabbit’s leg out of the pot for him.
When he had gnawed away the flesh in very primitive fashion, he threw the bone to the dog and wiped his greasy beard on the back of his hand. The dog, after crunching the bone, came snuffing round Bertrand, his ears back, his tawny eyes fixed suspiciously on Du Guesclin’s face.
“Ban, you devil, down! down! Pardon, lording, the dog must have his smell at strangers.”
Bertrand held out his hand to the beast, snapping his fingers and looking straight in the dog’s eyes. His absolute fearlessness satisfied the animal, for he gave a wag of the tail, grinned, and wrinkled up his snout, and curled himself complacently against Bertrand’s legs.
“He scents a true Breton,” said Du Guesclin, with a laugh. “Any news on the road, friend?”
The old man was studying Bertrand.
“Well, lording, the broom flower is in bloom, and little Kate, the ermine, is skipping and chuckling over the fight at Mivoie.”
Bertrand never flinched, but looked the peasant straight in the face.
“That is old news to me, friend,” he said.
The man grinned, and nodded his head mysteriously, with quaint sententiousness.
“Maybe, lording, you have not heard that the devil is loose again.”
“There are many devils in Brittany, father; we are possessed like the pigs in the Bible.”
“Eh, yes, but none so bad as Croquart. He has broken out of Josselin, they tell me, and is at Pontivy, with his free lances, swearing blood and burnings for Bamborough’s death.”
Bertrand straightened up, and took the news for its solid worth.
“I thought the Sieur de Beaumanoir had the fellow safe for a while,” he said.
“Ah, no doubt, lording, but Croquart is at Pontivy, and mad as an old wolf dam that has lost her cubs.”
The sun was well up when Bertrand took leave of the peasant folk, and, learning the way from them, mounted his horse and rode off into the woods. He had given the girl Marie a kiss before going, feeling grateful to her, even though she had seen him weep. New courage stirred in his heart, and his eyes were keen as he rode under the great trees, thinking of what the old man had told him concerning Croquart. A curious smile hovered about his mouth. Presently he dismounted, tethered his horse, knelt down on the grass, and prayed.
When he had ended his praying he took his shield upon his knees, and, drawing his poniard, began to batter at it with the hilt. The blows rang out through the silence of the woods till the eagle of the Du Guesclins was beaten from the shield.
Thesun was setting at La Bellière when a couple of men-at-arms wearing the Sieur de Tinteniac’s badge upon their sleeves came cantering along the road from Dinan. They wound through the poplar-trees and the beech thickets, flashing back the sunlight from their harness and raising a slight haze of dust that was turned to gold by the glow from the west. Riding up to the bridge, they hailed the porter who was closing the great gate and asked whether Sir Robin Raguenel had returned from Mivoie.
“For,” quoth the bulkier of the twain, “we are the Sieur de Tinteniac’s men, who has sent us jogging all the way from Montcontour with the news that he will try your master’s wine to-morrow.”
And so the Vicomte’s porter put back the gate for them, and Tinteniac’s men smelt the savory scent of the La Bellière kitchens. Nor was the news long in reaching the great salon where Tiphaïne and her father were playing chess, with Robin reading at the window. The lad went white when he heard the news and slunk out into the garden, sick at heart.
Heaven curse Tinteniac! What possessed him to come to La Bellière! Robin marched up and down under the apple-trees, biting his nails and smoothing his weak, round chin with the palm of his hand. The incubus of dread and remorse had grown heavier for him day by day he had lost both flesh and color, though a restless and feverish cheerfulness simulated the hectic confidence of a man who refuses to believe that death has him by the throat. And now the Sieur de Tinteniac was coming to La Bellière, and the lad’s guilty conscience fluttered like a girl in terror of a ghost.
At supper Robin saw the two men-at-arms seated among his father’s servants. They stared at him in all innocence, even as men stare at a fellow-mortal who has been blessed with the attributes of a hero. But to Robin, scared and suspicious, and ready to tread upon a snake in every corner, their interest in him suggested thoughts more sinister. Had Bertrand betrayed him, or had Beaumanoir and his lords discovered how the fesse of silver had played a double part? Robin sat in spiritual torment all through the meal, watching Tinteniac’s men much as a rabbit in the grass watches a falcon hovering for a swoop. When it happened that the fellows whispered together, he created their words out of the terror of his heart, and figured them out into ignominy and shame. Stephen Raguenel could make nothing of his son that night, and Tiphaïne, who had watched Robin jealously for many days, set the news of Tinteniac’s coming beside her brother’s moody face. The lad’s look troubled her, and she was filled with a vague dread of something she could not yet foreshadow.
Robin went to his bed in the room beside the chapel, but not to sleep. The darkness and the silence of the night intensified the misery of his moral loneliness and held him yet more at the mercy of his conscience. Toss and turn as he would, he could not escape from the conviction that his cowardice had been discovered and that the Sieur de Tinteniac was coming, like some stern St. Michael, to smite and to condemn. Even as a man upon the mountains may see the image of his own body magnified and distorted by the mist, so the lad’s conscious guilt took fright at its own fear. He sat shivering in bed, his teeth chattering, his face white with the moonlight that poured into the room. Alone, in the silence of the night, he was like a frightened child, who yearns for a mother’s warm arms and words of comfort.
It was past midnight when Tiphaïne was awakened by hearing some one knocking at her door. She sat up in bed and listened, the moonlight falling across the coverlet and touching her white arms and bosom.
Again she heard a hand knocking on the carved panels of the door.
“Who’s there?”
Since no voice answered her, she slipped out of bed, and, throwing a long cloak about her, opened the door and looked out into the passage. Leaning against the wall, with its hands over its face, Tiphaïne saw a dim and shrinking figure, the figure of her brother.
“Robin!”
She stood with one hand on the door, looking at Robin, a strained wonder on her face.
“Robin, what is it?—are you ill?”
She heard him groan as though in pain.
“Tiphaïne, my God, what shall I do? It is all a lie—a miserable lie!”
She leaned forward, seized Robin’s hands, drew them down, and looked into his face.
“You have lied to us?”
“Yes—”
“Of what?”
“I never fought at Mivoie; I was afraid; Bertrand took my arms.”
Tiphaïne dropped his hands and started back from him, a look—almost of fierceness—on her face.
“Robin, is this the truth?”
The misery of his silence answered her.
“What! You played the coward!—you let Bertrand make this sacrifice!”
Her clear voice rang along the gallery, calling echoes from the sleeping house. Robin, terrified, sprang forward and gripped her arm.
“Tiphaïne, you will wake every one; listen to me—”
She shook him off, cold as the moonlight for the moment, the shock of her brother’s shame making her hard and pitiless.
“You think that I shall help you to act this lie?”
His hands leaped out to her with futile pathos in the darkness.
“Tiphaïne, I cannot bear it; Tinteniac comes to-morrow.”
“Well, what then?”
“He may know everything. They will strike off my spurs, and I can never show my face in Brittany again. Tiphaïne, for God’s sake—help me!”
She unbent nothing to him, the pitifulness of his weakness filling her with a sense of overmastering scorn and anger.
“No, no.”
“But my father!”
“And you will let Bertrand suffer?”
“He made me promise.”
“Yes, and you kept the promise! My God, to think that you should be so mean!”
She leaned against the door-post, one hand at her throat, her eyes blazing even in the dim mingling of moonlight and of gloom. Robin was standing with his hands clasped about his head like a man frightened by the lightning in a storm.
“What can I do?—what can I do?—”
He repeated the words again and again, hardly knowing what he said. The very reiteration of the cry seemed to anger his sister, as the prattling of a child may anger a woman who is in trouble.
“Fool, keep quiet; let me think.”
Robin ceased his babbling and leaned against the wall, watching Tiphaïne, his face vacuous and flaccid about the mouth. For some minutes there was silence between them, a silence that seemed spaced by the rapid beating of the man’s heart.
Tiphaïne stirred herself at last and stepped back over the threshold into her room.
“Go back to bed,” she said, quietly.
Robin did not parley with her.
“You will help me?” he asked, with quivering mouth.
“To tell the truth, yes,” and she closed the door on him and left him shivering in the dark.
It happened that morning soon after dawn that two of the brothers of the abbey of Lehon, who had gone out to work in the fields, saw a man running along the road that wound between poplar-trees towards the abbey. They stood and waited for the man to approach, struck by his strange look and the way he reeled from side to side. He came on like one half-dead with running, his mouth open, his eyes glazed. Not at first did they recognize his face, so drawn and distorted was it with suffering and despair.
“The abbey?—the abbey?”
He stood panting, waving his hand vaguely down the road, his knees giving under him so that he rocked like a young tree in a wind.
“By the love of Our Lady, it is Messire Robin!”
They moved towards him, thinking him mad, but the man dodged them and ran on down the road. The two brothers stood looking after him, wondering what ill news was in the wind that the young lord of La Bellière ran half naked along the highway to Lehon.
Master Stephen, the abbot, knelt at his prayers in the parlor when the brother who served as porter came to him with a grave face and told how Messire Robin Raguenel had run half naked into the abbey church and was lying like one dead before the altar. Master Stephen, who was a man of substance and circumspection, dismissed the brother and went alone into the church. On the altar steps he found Robin lying, weeping like a child, his face hidden in his arms.
“Messire Robin! Messire Robin!”
A pitiful face met the abbot’s astonished eyes. It was sharp and sallow, like the face of a man who had come through some great sickness. Before he could prevent him the lad had clasped Stephen by the knees.
“Father, take me in, I will take the vows, I—”
He sank down in a dead faint, his hands still clutching the hem of the old man’s robe. Some of the brothers who were in the cloisters came when the abbot called them. Together they lifted Robin up, and, wondering, carried him from the church.