Indeed, the young English knight looked well in the dress of his station, which he wore for the first time; for he was very tall and broad of shoulder, and a lean man, well-bred; his face was clear and pale, and his fair hair fell thick and long behind his cap.
"But you, Dunstan, you cannot be seen—"
Gilbert stopped, for he noticed suddenly that both his men were clad in new clothes of good cloth and leather.
"The servants are honoured with their lord," said Dunstan. "The King sent gifts for us, too."
"That was a man's thought, not a woman's," said Gilbert, almost to himself.
He went out, and Dunstan walked by his left, but half a step behind his stride, as was proper.
The camp was lit up with fires and torches as far as one could see, and all men were out of doors, either walking up and down, arm in arm, or sitting before their tents on folding-stools, or on their saddles, or on packs of baggage. The hundreds and thousands of little Christmas trees, stuck into the earth amid circles of torches before the newly whitened tents, made a great garden of boughs and evergreens, and the yellow glare shone everywhere through lacing branches, and fell on rich colours and gleaming arms, well polished for the holiday, and lost itself suddenly in the cold starlight overhead. The air smelt of evergreen and the aromatic smoke of burning resin.
The night rang with song also, and in some places as many as a hundred had gathered in company to sing the long Christmas hymns they had learned as little children far away at home—endless canticles with endless repetitions, telling the story of the Christ-Child's birth at Bethlehem, of the adoration of the shepherds, and of the coming of the Eastern kings.
In one part of the camp the rough Burgundians were drinking the strong Asian wine in deep draughts, roaring their great choruses between, with more energy than unction. But for the most part the northern men were sober and in earnest, praying as they sang and looking upward as if the Star of the East were presently to shed its soft light in the sky; and they tended the torches and lights around the trees devoutly, not guessing that their fathers had done the same long ago, in bleak Denmark and snowy Norway, in worship of Odin and in honour of Yggdrasil, the tree of life.
The Gascons and all the men of the South, on their side, had made little altars between two trees, decked with white cloths and adorned with tinsel ornaments and little crosses and small carved images carefully brought, like household gods, from the far home, and treasured only next to their arms. The thin, dark faces of the men were fervent with southern faith, and their wild black eyes were deep and still.