His music, the sword-clang free;
And when foemen stand ’gainst his native land,
Good profit, good profit is he!”
At daybreak on the morrow the knights and their train left the castle on their way to Rennes. As the twin pages rode after their uncle, Alured de Claremont turned for a last look at the grim old tower, and Bertrand du Guesclin (who, having begun to get over the effects of his broken head, had dragged himself to his window to witness the departure) looked down in wondering admiration, not wholly untinged with envy, on the English boy’s bright, comely face, little guessing under what terribly changed conditions he was one day to see that face again.
“Had I but a face like yon lad!” said the Breton boy, with a deep sigh. “Why should he be the delight of every eye, and I a loathing to all that look upon me?”
But then came back to him the pilgrim-monk’s warning to “curb his own rebellious spirit,” and with it came the memory of the strange dream in which he had seen himself crowned with laurels as the champion of France. His face brightened at the recollection, and he knelt down with a lighter heart to say his morning prayer.
CHAPTER VII
A Strange Tale
“Raise thy lance-point a thought higher, lad; ay, so. Now put thy steed to his full career, but see thou keep him well in hand. Now wheel him—so, deftly done! Yet a few months’ training, and, though thou hast but sixteen years, and needest no barber, I trow thy gay cousins will find thee their match, boast as they may.”
The speaker was Sir Godefroi de Tinteniac, a near neighbour of the Sire du Guesclin; and the lad whom he was training to manage horse and lance on a wide sweep of greensward a few miles from Rennes, was Bertrand du Guesclin himself.
“Think you, then, noble sir,” said Bertrand, with sparkling eyes, “that, with the aid of your kind teaching, I may yet make some figure in the ranks of chivalry?”