“Is this the land of plenty whereof they told us? Why, there is neither bite nor sup to be had without fighting for it!”
“Plenty, quotha? Rare plenty, in sooth, when I myself saw, this very day, a loaf of bread (and a small one to boot) sold in our camp for a silver florin!”
“And see how these storms beset us, even in this land of sunshine! One would think, lads, there is a curse on our undertaking!”
“Small wonder if there be, when we fight for one like yon Spanish butcher, whom our Prince is so fond to brother! I saw him yester-eve, when he rode through the camp with his highness; and I tell ye his is a face that none would trust—no, not a five-year-old child! Dost mind, Hal, yon French dog that was chained in the courtyard of our inn at Bordeaux, which looked so mild and meek when any man came nigh to it, till, snap! it had him by the leg or ever he was aware? Even such is Pedro the Cruel, as men call him—a goodly name, in truth, for a crowned king!”
“Crowned king, quotha? Could I have my way, I’d crown him with a red-hot trivet, as was done to yon French rogue who headed the peasant churls against the nobles in the days of the Jacquerie! He deserves no less, I trow; for what manner of king is he, think ye, at the very sound of whose coming his subjects fly as from the Evil One himself?”
When they crossed the Ebro at Logrono, the rain was still falling in torrents; and the soldiers’ growls were louder than ever as they struggled through ankle-deep mud, wet, weary, half-starved, with the furious wind buffeting them like a living foe, and the stinging rain-gusts lashing their faces.
But all murmurs were hushed as there came striding through their ranks (on foot like themselves) a figure which all knew at a glance. It was a tall man in full armour, whose gaunt, strongly marked features, hooked nose, and quick, fierce, restless movements, with the piercing glance of his one eye, were grimly suggestive of an eagle about to swoop on its prey. Such was the famous Sir John Chandos, the best knight of Edward’s host, and rightly called “the flower of English chivalry.”
“How now, lads?” cried he, cheerily; “do ye flag with the goal in sight? Patience a little, and ye shall have full amends. Yon Spanish knaves are so malapert as to deem that the bold lads of Merry England can be daunted by a gust of wind and a shower of rain; but we will teach them ere long that they have erred—ha?”
The great leader’s stirring words put new life into all who heard; and forward pressed the toil-worn host as if it had just started.
On the morrow, their eagerness for action was increased tenfold by the news that Don Tello, Henry of Transtamare’s brother, had fallen with a large force on an isolated English detachment, and cut off Sir William Felton, several other knights, and more than two hundred men. But, though burning to avenge this disaster, the English saw no way of doing so; for they found the Spanish army so strongly posted at the little town of Navaretta, that even the Black Prince durst not attack, in such a position, a force thrice his own; and all that day the opposing hosts faced each other in sullen inaction.