“Bertrand du Guesclin,” replied the boy, in a tone of sullen dejection, which showed that he, at least, had no guess how soon the unknown name that he uttered so despondingly was to echo like a roll of thunder through the length and breadth of Europe, and to be the symbol of all that was chivalrous and noble alike with friend and foe.
The monk started slightly, and stood silent for a moment or two, with knitted brow and compressed lips, as if trying hard to recall some half-forgotten association connected with the name that he had just heard.
“Give me thy hand,” said he at last, in a strangely altered voice.
The future hero extended his broad, sinewy hand to the clasp of Michael’s long, slender fingers; and the monk’s deep, earnest eyes rested with a penetrating glance on those of young Du Guesclin, which, as they met his, remained fixed as if unable to turn away.
So the two stood gazing at each other without a word for some moments, while the young forester looked wonderingly on.
“Give glory to God, my son, for He hath destined thee to great honour,” said the monk at last, with a solemn earnestness, which showed how deeply he felt the importance of the strange message that he was delivering. “The grace of Heaven hath vouchsafed to mine unworthy self the gift of reading in each face that I see the destiny of him who bears it; and I read in thine that God hath chosen thee to be the champion of this distressed land, and to save it from all its foes!”
To any man of that age, the voice of a Churchman was as that of God; and Bertrand no more thought of doubting the monk’s words than if they had come down to him from heaven. His heart bounded at the thought that he, the ill-favoured, the mocked, the despised—he, on whom his own parents looked down as a shame to them—should be chosen by Heaven itself for so glorious a task; and it was no disbelief, but sheer astonishment, that fettered his tongue when he tried to answer.
“I the champion of France?” said he at last, with a look and tone of joyful amazement.
“Thou and no other,” said the monk, firmly. “Why look’st thou thus amazed? Is it not told in Holy Writ how the greatest king of God’s chosen people was at the first but an unknown shepherd-lad, and how he too was despised by his own kin?”
“Ha! how know’st thou that, holy father?” cried Du Guesclin, starting.