With eating frozen porridge!”
“Callest thou that the ‘Song of Roland’?” said the man who had asked for it, with a broad grin.
“Marry, that do I!” cried Roland; for it was indeed Du Guesclin’s adventurous jester, once more in an English camp in disguise. “It is the self-same song, as sung on the field of Hastings in the days of the great Duke William, by his good knight Taillefer, when we French went over and beat you English as flat as your own dough-cakes!”
This joke was less successful than his former ones. The rough soldiers bent their brows ominously, and muttered that their bow-strings were well fitted to scourge the malapertness out of a prating fool. But just then, luckily for poor Roland, their captain came up, and bade the new-comers follow him.
They were led straight to the Duke of Lancaster’s tent, where the officer bade them wait while he went in to ask the duke’s pleasure concerning them. As they stood waiting, Roland (who, as we have seen, had learned English, though carefully concealing the fact) twisted his face into a grin of impish glee as he caught the words of an order that the duke was giving to one of his officers.
The next moment he and his comrade stood before the general, in reply to whose questions the Wolf told briefly Du Guesclin’s capture of Fougeray and destruction of the English foraging party.
“And what wert thou doing the while, good fellow?” asked the duke, never dreaming that the man who had just given him so important a warning could be a foe in disguise.
“Watching for dead men to plunder,” said the Wolf, with a frankness that brought a momentary smile to Lancaster’s grave face.
“Be that as it may,” said the duke, “thou hast brought us timely warning, and it shall not be forgotten. Sir Eustace,” added he, to a knight beside him, “see these men well cared for, for they have done us good service.”
Had he guessed what kind of “service” these men were really doing him, he would have hanged both on the spot; but he was not to know it till too late.