But stained with ruddy smear,
With ruddy smear of good red blood
That is not the blood of deer!”
A chilling silence followed the gloomy prediction, every word of which all the listeners (reckless jesters as they were) firmly believed. At last Beauchamp said—
“And this befell, say’st thou, just a year agone to-day? Then must the bode be fulfilled ere to-morrow’s sunset! Now, God forbid it should mean that one of ye twain must die in to-night’s battle!”
“Why not?” cried Hugo, recklessly. “How can a man die better, since die he must? Let who will die or live, England shall win the day! Fill yet another cup of Gascon wine, comrades (one thing, at least, in which France hath the better of us), and let us drink to the fortune of England!”
The rest answered the pledge, but less heartily than usual; for this sudden burst of wild gaiety from that quiet and sober lad seemed to them all an even more sinister omen than had he been silent and dejected; and Beauchamp whispered gloomily to his next neighbour that Hugo must surely be “fey” (doomed).
The same confident assurance of victory in the coming fray filled the hearts of the sturdy English archers and men-at-arms in the guard-room below.
“Let ’em come if they will, these braggart Frenchmen!” cried Harry Woodstall, of Winchester. “They are great at boasting, but big words break no bones. If they have a mind to taste our English steel once more, e’en let ’em, though methinks they had a bellyful on’t on Crecy Field—hey, Dickon?”
“By’r lady, thou say’st sooth, Hal. Ha, lads! I pity such of ye as were not there, for ’twas a right goodly fray! The French had archers, too, forsooth; a scum of Genoa rogues with arbalests (cross-bows) who thought, beshrew their hearts! to match us, and came on with a leap and a fell cry, as if to scare us like children with their clamour. Aha! then we let them see how the grey goose-wing can fly! Ye would have thought it snowed, lads, so thick flew our shafts among ’em. Down went Genoa bowman and French man-at-arms, down went belted knight and haughty noble, before the lusty cloth-yard shafts of Old England. When the broil was over, there lay dead on the French side thrice the number of our whole array, all told; and scarce a foot-archer of us all but had two or three prisoners, insomuch that we were in some sort constrained to kill such as were not worth ransoming, not knowing what else to do with them. I myself took a gay-plumed popinjay of Provence, be-ringed and be-jewelled like any court-lady, whose ransom kept my gipsire (purse) full for many a day.”