“I am of Normandy, noble sir, and it fared with me as with other peasants of those parts; all alike were crushed and trampled down by the oppression of our master. Count me not, I pray, as one who loves to speak ill of dignities, for well I wot that men cannot live without seigneurs and nobles, and that a land which lacked them would be as a body without bones; but in our case the old saying was made good, that the shepherd may be worse than the wolf. This man had his cottage burnt down, and that man had his daughter carried off, and the other had his only son hanged for killing a hare in his lord’s woods, to save his old father from dying of hunger; and——”
“Say no more of that, good fellow,” said the young noble, wincing as if in sudden pain. “I know but too well that many of us nobles have sinned grievously against God in such wise as thou sayest; and, for mine own part, I have made a solemn vow that if ever I rule in my father’s stead (long may it be ere that day come!), every vassal of mine shall have as fair play as if he were the Duke of Brittany himself!”
“Now, may God bless you for that word, noble sir!” cried the other, fervently, “and would to Heaven every noble in the land would make the same vow, and keep it. But to my tale. Heavier and heavier waxed our burden, till at last we could bear no more; and we said in our hearts that it was better to die at once and all together, biting and tearing to the last, as dies a wolf at bay, than be destroyed one by one, as a butcher slays sheep. So we forsook our homes, banded ourselves together, and went forth to the wild wood, to live by point of arrow and edge of knife!”
“Thou hast been an outlaw of the forest, then?” said Bertrand, with an interest unalloyed by any tinge of scorn or aversion; for, at a time when every petty baron was himself a robber on a grand scale, the disgrace in such cases lay not in having robbed, but in not having robbed enough.
“Ay, and a captain of outlaws, for I was the leader of our band; and they and I sware a solemn oath never to spare knight or noble who might fall into our hands; and, should we do so, the Evil One should that moment snatch us away.”
“And how fared ye after that?” asked young Du Guesclin, eagerly.
“The ballads and romaunts would have us believe that outlaws live right merrily,” said the ex-bandit, with a bitter smile; “but trust them not. Vengeance we had, indeed, in full measure; but vengeance is as when one eateth snow to slake one’s thirst—it is good for a time, but then is the torment greater than before. And then for pleasure—such pleasure as we had was as when one in mortal pain drowneth his agony for a brief space in strong wine. While we were fighting and plundering and slaying, or rioting and revelling over our booty, we could hold at bay the thoughts which hunted us like bloodhounds day and night; but when the drink had died out of us, and we lay awake beneath the black, whispering trees through the long dark hours of night, beside our dying fire, then was the time when the Wicked One dug his claws into our hearts! And then, with the thought of all that lay behind us, and still more with the thought of all that lay before, ’twas marvel we went not clean distraught!”
Here he paused a moment, as if overcome with the terror of these gloomy recollections, while Bertrand eyed him with a look of heartfelt pity which the rough soldier seemed fully to understand and appreciate.
“One night,” he resumed at length, “we were at the height of our mad revels, shouting and brawling over our liquor, singing ribald songs, and defying Heaven itself with mockery and blasphemy, when all at once there stood in the midst of us, full in the light of the fire—no man could tell whence or how—a little child clothed in white, with long, fair hair, and a face like that of the Holy Child in the great minster-church of Rouen.
“Then we all shrank back affrighted, thinking no less than that this must be our Lord Himself, appearing to us in the same form in which He first came on earth; and all the black deeds we had done rose up at once in our memory, blacker than ever.