The order to march now came, and the whole division broke into column, and took the road to St Aubin, the old Marshal and the Captain of the Wight with drawn sword riding at their head.
After marching some three miles, and when the houses of St Aubin du Cormier were just visible over the orchards, they came to a highroad which their road intersected. Here a halt was called, and the men were allowed to refresh themselves. The heat was getting very oppressive.
Ralph and Dicky Cheke wandered off to see the rest of the army come up.
"Oh, I wish I had put a cabbage leaf inside my helmet," groaned Dicky. "I shall be roasted like a chestnut inside its coat. I'm stewing in my own juice--oh!"
"'Tis a lucky chance we are wearing tabards; look at those men-at-arms riding with my Lord d'Albret; they must needs be grilled. They've neither lambrequin nor surcoat, and shine in the sun like fresh-caught mackerel," answered Ralph.
"What a fine lot they all look! and look at those Allemaynes! I do like those swash-bucklering varlets. Certes we are a fine show! I get more and more pitiful when I think of those jackanapes of Frenchmen yonder. If only they knew it, how much better it would be, and what a lot of waste of moist humours it would save, if they just came in and sorted themselves out among us. What a comfort it would be! Ugh! how parlous moist I am!"
"Look, Dicky, at those coleuvrines and dragons! I am all agog to see them fire; we've a right plentiful store of artillery, I trow!" said Ralph. "Not but what I don't believe our archers are worth a hundred of them, and more, too; but we shall see. Oh, I wish they would begin. Where are the French, I marvel. Look, our men are falling in; let's hasten back. There's something going on."
And so there seemed. The English division, forming, with some Breton men-at-arms and the seventeen hundred infantry, the vanguard of the army, was standing to its arms. The cavalry were mounting, and a body of mounted archers was thrown forward under Tom o' Kingston.
The rest of the army had come up, and the main battle, or middle ward, as it was called, under the Lord d'Albret, in which was the fine body of Swiss infantry, conspicuous among whom were the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Orange, was drawn up to support the vanguard.
The rear ward was commanded by the Comte de Chauteaubriand, whose castle had also been lately razed to the ground by the army of Charles VIII. The artillery was brought up and placed upon the flanks of the vanguard, and a small body of mounted archers was drawn up in support of the clumsy cannon.