We were alone, and now was the hardest of my work to do, to comfort Elliot, when, in faith, I sorely needed comfort myself. But honour at once and necessity called me to ride, being now fit to bear harness, and foreseeing no other chance to gain booty, or even, perchance, my spurs. Nor could I endure to be a malingerer. She sat there, very white, her lip quivering, but her eyes brave and steadfast.
I kneeled beside her, and in my hands I took her little hand, that was cold as ice.
“It is for the Maid, and for you, Elliot,” I whispered; and she only bent her head on my shoulder, but her cold hand gripped mine firmly.
“She did say that you should come back unharmed of sword,” whispered Elliot, looking for what comfort she might. “But, O my dear! you may be taken, and when shall I see you again? Oh! this life is the hardest thing for women, who must sit and tremble and pray at home. Sure no danger of war is so terrible! Ah, must you really go?”
Then she clung so closely about me, that it seemed as if I could never escape out of her arms, and I felt as if my heart must break in twain.
“How could I look men in the face, and how could I ever see the Maid again, if I go not?” I said; and, loosening her grasp, she laid her hands on my shoulders, and so gazed on me steadfastly, as if my picture could be fixed on the tablets of her brain.
“On your chin is coming a little down, at last,” she said, smiling faintly, and then gave a sob, and her lips met mine, and our very souls met; but, even then, we heard my master’s steps hobbling to the door, and she gave a cry, and fled to her chamber. And this was our leave-taking—brief, but I would not have had it long.
“It is ill work parting, Heaven help us,” said my master. “Faith, I remember, as if it were to-day, how I set forth for Verneuil; a long time I was gone, and came back a maimed man. But it is fortune of war! The saints have you in their keeping, my son, and chiefly St. Andrew. Come back soon, and whole, and rich, for, meseems, if I lose one of you, I am to lose both.”
Therewith he embraced me, and I set forth to the hostel where I was to lie that night.
Now, see how far lighter is life to men than to women, for, though I left the house with the heaviest heart of any man in Tours, often looking back at the candleshine in my lady’s casement, yet, when I reached the “Hanging Sword,” I found Thomas Scott sitting at his wine, and my heart and courage revived within me. He lacked nothing but one to listen, and soon was telling tales of the war, and of the road, and of how this one had taken a rich prisoner, and that one had got an arrow in his thigh, and of what chances there were to win Paris by an onslaught.