"Then you are going with us to Bordeaux?" exclaimed Eustace, eagerly.
"Ay, truly."
"Nay, but that is a right joyful hearing!" said Eustace. "Old friends should be brethren in arms."
"But, Eustace," said young Ashton, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "I like not that outlandish Squire, so tall and black. Men say he is a Moor—a worshipper of Mahound."
Eustace laughed heartily at this report, and assured his friend that, though he had heard his brother often give his Squire in jest his nom de guerre of Gaston le Maure, yet d'Aubricour was a gallant gentleman of Gascony. But still Leonard was not satisfied. "Had ever man born in Christian land such flashing black eyes and white teeth? And is not he horribly fierce and strict?"
"Never was man of kinder heart and blither temper."
"Then you think that he will not be sharp with us? 'More straight in your saddle!' 'lance lower!' 'head higher;' that is what has been ringing in my ears from morning till night of late, sometimes enforced by a sharp blow on the shoulders. Is it not so with you?"
"Oh, old Penrose took all that trouble off their hands long ago. Gaston is the gentlest of tutors compared with him."
"I hope so!" sighed Leonard; "my very bones ache with the tutoring I get from my father at home. And, Eustace, resolve me this—"
"Hush, do not you see that Father Cyril is about to pronounce the Grace—. There—now must I go and serve your father with the grace-cup, but I will be with you anon."