“And by all oaths rolled in one,” I fiercely cried, striking my first upon the table till the foeman’s silver leaped (for the lying Abbot’s story had moved my wrath), “by Thor and Odin, by cruel Osiris, by the bones of Hengist and his brother, that saint will never contradict him!”
Shortly after we rose, and each on his rough pallet sought the rest a long day’s work had made so grateful.
Yes! we sought it, but to one, at least, it would not come for long! Hour after hour I paced in meditation about my tent with folded arms and bent head, thinking of all that had been or might have been, and, after that supper of suggestions, the last few weeks rose up strongly before me. Again and again all that I had seen and done in that crowded interval swept by my eyes, but the one thing that stayed while all others faded, the one ever-present shadow among so many, was the remembrance of the fair, unhappy girl Isobel. Full of rougher thoughts, I have not once spoken of her, yet, since we landed on this shore, her winning presence had grown on me every day I lived, and now to-night, here, close on the eve, as we knew it, of a desperate battle, wherefrom no man could see the outcome, the very darkness all about me, after the flickering banquet lights, were full of Isobel. I laughed and frowned by turn to myself in my lonely walk that evening, to find how the slighted girl was growing upon me. Was I a silly squire at a trysting-place, decked out with love-knots and tokens, a green gallant in a summer wood, full of sighs and sonnets, to be so witched by the bare memory of a foolish white wench who had fallen enamored of my swart countenance? It was idle nonsense; I would not yield. I put it behind me, and thought of to-morrow—the good King and my jolly comrades—and then there again was the outline of Isobel’s fair face in the yellow rift of the evening sky; there were Isobel’s clear eyes fixed, gentle and reproachful, on me, and the glimmer of her white draperies amid the shifting shadow of the tent, and even the evening wind outside was whispering as it came sighing over the wild grass lands—“Isobel!” Ah! and there was something more behind all that thought of Isobel. There were eyes that looked from Isobel’s shadowy face, wherever in my fancy I saw it, that filled me with a strange unrest, and a whisper behind the whispers of that maiden voice that was hers and yet was not—a fine thin music that played upon the fibers of my heart; a presence behind a haunting presence; a meaning behind a meaning that stirred me with the strangest fancies. And before another night was over I understood them!
Well, in fact and in deed, I was in love like many another good soldier, and long did I strive to find a specific for the gentle malady, but when this might not be—why, I laughed!—the thing itself must needs be borne; ’twas a common complaint, and no great harm; when the war was over, I would get back to England, and, if the maid were still of the same way of thinking—had I not stood a good many knocks and buffets in the world?—a little ease would do me good. Ah! a very fair maid—a fair maid, indeed! And her dower some of the fattest land you could find in a dozen shires!
Thus, schooling myself to think a due entertainment of the malady were better than a churlish cure, I presently decided to write to the lady; for, I argued, if to-morrow ends as we hope it may, why, the letter will be a good word for a homeward traveling hero crowned with new-plucked bays; and if to-morrow sees me stiff and stark, down in yon black valley, among to-morrow’s silent ones, still ’twill be a meet parting, and I owe the maid a word or two of gentleness. I determined, therefore, to write to her at once a scroll, not of love—for I was not ripe for that—but of compassion—of just those feelings that one has to another when the spark of love trembles to the kindling but is not yet ablaze. And because I did not know my own mind to any certainty, and because that youth Flamaucœur was both shrewd and witty—as ready-witted and as nimble, indeed, with tongue and pen as though he were a woman—I determined it should be he who should indite that epistle and ease my conscience of this duty which had grown to be so near a pleasure.
I sent forthwith for Flamaucœur, and he came at once, as was his wont, sheathed in comely steel from neck to heel, his close-shut helm upon his head, but all weaponless as usual, save for a toy dagger at his side.
“Good friend,” I said, “you carry neither sword nor mace. That is not wise in such a camp as this, and while the Frenchman’s watchfires smoke upon the eastern sky. But, never mind, I will arm thee myself for the moment. Here”—passing him the things a writer needs—“here is a little weapon wherewith they say much mischief has been done at one time or another in the world, and some sore wounds taken and given; wield it now for me in kinder sort, and write me the prettiest epistle thou canst—not too full of harebrained love or the nonsense that minstrels deal in—but friendly, suave and gentle, courteous to my lady-love!”
“To whom?” gasped Flamaucœur, stepping back a pace.
“Par Dieu, boy!” I laughed. “I spoke plain enough! Why, thou consumèd dog in the manger, while thy own heart is confessedly in condition of eternal combustion, may not another knight even warm himself by a spark of love without your glowering at him so between the bars of thine iron muzzle? Come! Why should not I love a maid as well as you—ah! and write to her a farewell on the eve of battle?”