CHAPTER XXIII
Possessed Swine
A feat like the capture of Fougeray Castle would have been enough for most men; but it could not satisfy Du Guesclin, to whom it was but the first step in the achievement of a far more daring design—nothing less than the defeat of the whole English army then besieging Rennes for the second time.
This would have seemed hopeless to any man but himself; for that army was one of the finest that England had ever sent forth, and led by the formidable Duke of Lancaster, a leader worthy of his father, Edward III. But the Breton hero’s chivalrous spirit was stirred to its inmost depths by the peril of the beloved city where he had made his first essay in arms, and had received at the altar the hand of his beautiful bride; and he vowed that, come what might, it should not lack a helper in its need.
The stormy sunset was casting a red and angry glare on the dark ramparts of Rennes, on the evening after the capture of Fougeray, and the stout English beleaguerers were gathered round their camp-fires over a very scanty supper, for by this time the besiegers were almost as much straitened as the besieged. Like true Englishmen, they were grumbling unstintedly at the cold and short commons; but, like true Englishmen, they were ready to face all this, and more, in the course of their duty.
One group, which lay nearest the town, seemed blither than the rest; for the music of a rollicking ballad came from the centre of the ring, and frequent bursts of laughter applauded the performance of a north-country minstrel, who was singing to his little three-stringed lute the old ballad of “Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough,” which, celebrating as it did the exploits of three English bowmen, was always a favourite with the sturdy archers of Old England.
The singer had got well on with the third “fytte” (part) of his song, and had just reached the point where Adam and Clym, and their fellow-outlaw, William of Cloudeslee, go to the king to ask pardon for having “slain his fallow-deer” (wisely saying nothing of their greater misdeeds) and the king—who was at first for hanging them on the spot—pardons them at the queen’s entreaty, and even invites them to dine with him—
“They had not sitten but a while
Certain without leasing (lying),
When there came messengers from the north
With letters to our king.