“Yet that is what her hungry eyes will look for when her fingers untie this silk.”
“Why, then, take up your pen again and write thus:
‘And, Madam, to-morrow’s battle, if it comes, will be no light affair. He who sends this to thee may, ere it reaches thy hand, be numbered among the things that are past. Therefore he would also that all negligence of his were purged by such atonement as he can make, and all crudeness likewise amended. And in particular he offers to thee, whose virtues and condescension late reflection have brought lively to his mind, his most dutiful and appreciative homage. You, who have so good a knowledge of his poor taste, will pardon his ineloquence, but he would say to thee, in fact, that thy gentleness and worth were never so conscious to him as here to-night, when the red gleam of coming battle plays along the evening sky, and, if he wears no token in his helmet in to-morrow’s fray, ’tis because he has none of thine.’
“There, boy! ’tis not what I meant to say—and very halting, yet she will guess its meaning. Dost thou not think so?”
“Guess its meaning! Oh, dear comrade, she will live again and feed upon it—wake and sleep upon it, and wear it next her heart, just as I should were I she and you were he.”
“But it is so beggarly and poor expressed,” I said, with pleased humility.
“She will not think so,” cried Flamaucœur. “If I know aught of maids, she will think it the most blessed vellum that ever was engrossed, she will like its style better than the wretched culprit likes the style of the reprieve the steaming horseman flaunts before him. She’ll con each line and letter, and puncture them with tears and kisses—thou hast had small ken of maids, I think, sweet soldier!”
“Well! well! It may be so. Do up the letter, since it will read so well, and put it in the way to be taken by the first messenger who sails for England. Then we will ride round the posts and see how near the Frenchman’s watchfires be. And so to sleep, good friend, and may the many-named Powers which sit on high wake us to a happy to-morrow!”