‘There will be help in them,’ he muttered, placing his master with his back against a tree; for the late contention had produced such fresh exhaustion that it was plain the wounds were more serious than he had thought at first.
The two friars, men with homely, weather-beaten, but simple good faces, came up, startled at seeing a wounded man on the way-side, and ready to proffer assistance.
Need like George Douglas’s was of all languages, and besides, Ringan had, among the exigencies of the journey, picked up something by which he could make himself moderately well understood. The brethren stooped over the wounded man and examined his wounds. One of them produced some oil from a flask in his wallet, and though poor George’s own shirt was the only linen available, they contrived to bandage both hurts far more effectually than Ringan could.
They asked whether this was the effect of a quarrel or the work of robbers.
‘Routiers,’ Ringan said. ‘The ladies—we guarded them—they carried them off—up there.’
‘What ladies?—the Scottish princesses?’ asked one of the friars; for they had been at Nanci, and knew who had been assembled there; besides that, the Scot was known enough all over France for the nationality of Ringan and his master to have been perceived at once.
George understood this, and answered vehemently, ‘I must follow them and save them!’
‘In good time, with the saints’ blessing,’ replied Brother Benigne soothingly, ‘but healing must come first. We must have you to our poor house yonder, where you will be well tended.’
George was lifted to the pony’s back, and supported in the saddle by Ringan and one of the brethren. He had been too much dazed by the cut on the head to have any clear or consecutive notion as to what they were doing with him, or what passed round him; and Ringan did his best to explain the circumstances, and thought it expedient to explain that his master was ‘Grand Seigneur’ in his own country, and would amply repay whatever was done for him; the which Brother Gerard gave him to understand was of no consequence to the sons of St. Francis. The brothers had no doubt that the outrage was committed by the Balchenburg Baron, the ally of the ecorcheurs and routiers, the terrors of the country, in his impregnable castle. No doubt, they said, he meant to demand a heavy ransom from the good King and Dauphin. For the honour of Scotland, Ringan, though convinced that Hall had his share in the treason, withheld that part of the story. To him, and still more to his master, the journey seemed endless, though in reality it was not more than two miles before they arrived at a little oasis of wheat and orchards growing round a vine-clad building of reddish stone, with a spire rising in the midst.
Here the porter opened the gate in welcome. The history was volubly told, the brother-infirmarer was summoned, and the Master of Angus was deposited in a much softer bed than the good friars allowed themselves. There the infirmarer tended him in broken feverish sleep all night, Ringan lying on a pallet near, and starting up at every moan or murmur. But with early dawn, when the brethren were about to sing prime, the lad rose up, and between signs and words made them understand that he must be released, pointing towards the mountains, and comporting himself much like a dog who wanted to be let out.