But the insidious Flamaucœur found a way and place. He sought out the master of the inn himself, and, unheeding of his curt refusals, made request so cunning and used his money-pouch so liberal that that strong and surly yeoman, with much to do, found us a loft to sleep in, which was a bedroom better than the wayside, though still but a rough one. Then Flamaucœur waylaid the buxom, hurrying housewife, and, on an evening when many a good gentleman was going supperless to bed, got us a loaf of white bread and a wooden bowl of milk, the which we presently shared most comrade-like, my friend lifting his visor so much as might suffice to eat, but yet not enough to show his face. He waylaid a lad, and, for a coin or two, and a little of his sweet-voiced cajoling, got our steeds watered and sheltered, though many another lordly, sleek-limbed beast stood all night unwashed, unminded. A most persuasive youth was Flamaucœur!
And then, our frugal supper made and our horses seen to, we went to bed. Diffident, ingenious young knight! He made my couch (while I was not by) long and narrow—no bigger than for one—of all the soft things he could lay his hands on—as though, forsooth, I were some tender flower—and for himself hardly spread a horsecloth on the bare floor!
Now, when I came up and found this done, without a word I sent the boy to go and see what the night was like, and if the moon yet showed, or if it rained, and, when he went forthwith, pulled that couch to bits, respreading it so it was broad enough for two good comrades side by side. Ah! And when Flamaucœur came back, I rated him soundly, telling him that, though it was set in the laws of arms that a young knight should show due deference to an older, yet all that comrades had of hard or soft was equally dividable, both board and bed, and good luck and misfortune. And he was amenable, though still a little strange, and unbuckled his armor by our dim rushlight, and then—poor, tired youth!—with that iron mask upon his head, in his quilted underwear, threw himself upon the couch, and slept almost before he could straighten out those shapely limbs of his.
And I presently lay down by his side and slept, while all through my dreams went surging the wildest fancies of tilt and tourney and lady’s love. And now I heard in the uproar of the restless village street and the neighing of the chargers at their pickets the noise of battle and of onset. And then I thought I had, on some unknown field, five thousand spearmen overset against a hundred times as many; and while my heart bounded proudly in answer to that disadvantage, and I rode up and down our glittering ranks speaking words of strength and courage to those scanty heroes, waving my shining sword in the sun that shone for victory on us and curbing my fretting charger’s restless valor, methought, somehow, the words dried up upon my lips, and the proud murmur of my firm-set veterans turned to a low moaning wail, and a gray mist of tears put out the sun, and black grief drank up the warriors; and while I wrestled with that melancholy, Blodwen, my Princess, was sitting by my side, cooling my hot forehead with her calm, immortal hand, and calling me, with smiling accent, “dull, unwitful, easily beguiled,” and all the time that young gallant by me lay limp, supine, asleep, and soulless.
So passed the checkered fancies of the night, and the earliest dawn found us up, in arms, and ready for sterner things.
Again I had to owe to Flamaucœur’s ready wit and liberal purse precedence for our needs above all the requirements of the many good knights who would have crossed with the haste they could, but had, perforce, to wait. It was he who got us a vessel sufficient for our needs when the fisher folk were swearing there was not a ship to be hired for twenty miles up or down the coast. In this we embarked with our horses, and one or two other gentlemen we knew, and in a few hours’ sailing the English shore went down and the sunny cliffs of Normandy rose ahead of us.
Will you doubt but that I stood thoughtful and silent as the green and silver waves were shivered by our dancing prow, and that strange, familiar land rose up before us? I, that British I, who had seen Cæsar’s galleys, heavy with Umbrian and Etrurian, put out from that very shore: I, who had stood on the green cliffs of Harold’s kingdom and shaken a Saxon javelin toward that home of Norman tyranny: I, this knightly, steel-bound I, stood and watched that country grow upon us, with thoughts locked in my heart there were none to listen to and none to share.
Oh! it was passing strange, and I did not rouse me until our iron keel went gently grinding up the Norman gravel, and our vessel was beached upon the hostile shore.