"I beseech you, my good lord, to let me share them with him," said Monsieur de Lens; "I am as eager for renown as any man can be."
"You will share them, of course, as one of his band," replied the old soldier, "and I doubt not, young gentleman, will do very well. I will refuse honour to no one who wins it;" and thus conversing, they rode on as far as Pont a Marq, where they found a large body of men-at-arms waiting for the old Lord of Roucq.
Richard of Woodville remarked that they were most of them middle-aged men, with hard and weather-beaten countenances, who had evidently seen a good deal of service; but he observed also that--probably, from the unwillingness of the Burgundian nobility to submit to anything like strict discipline--there seemed to be few persons of distinction in the corps, and not one knight but the old Lord himself. Without any pause, the whole party marched on to Douay, the young Englishman losing no opportunity of exercising his men in such evolutions as the nature of the ground permitted, and many of the old soldiers of De Roucq watching his proceedings in silence, but with an attentive and inquiring eye.
At Douay they halted for an hour and a half, to feed their horses and to take some refreshment; and then marching on, they did not draw a rein again till Cambray appeared in sight. Here all the party expected to remain the night; for Cambray, as the reader well knows, is a good day's march from Lille, especially for men covered with heavy armour, and for horses who had to carry not only the weight of their masters and their masters' harness, but steel manefaires, testières, and chanfrons of their own. The orders of the commander, however, showed them, before they entered the gates, that such repose was not to fall to their lot, for he directed them to seek no hostel, but to quarter themselves, without dividing, in the market-place, and there to feed their beasts.
"'Tis a fine evening," he said, "and you shall have plenty of food and wine; but we must march on, for an hour or two, at night, that we may be in time to-morrow. If we have more space than enough in the morning, why the destriers will be all the fresher."
No one ventured to make any reply, though the men-at-arms of the Count of Charolois felt somewhat weary with their unwonted exertion, and would fain have persuaded themselves that their beasts could go no farther that night. Their leader, or vingtner, who held the rank of a sergeant of the present day, and usually commanded twenty men, went so far as to hint his opinion on this subject to Richard of Woodville; but the young Englishman stopped him in an instant, replying coldly, "If your horses break down we must find you others. We have nothing to do but to obey."
The young Englishman took care, however, that the chargers of his whole party should have everything that could refresh them, and he spared not his own purse to procure for them a different sort of food from that which was provided for the rest. The crumb of bread soaked in water was a favourite expedient with the English of that day, as it is now with the Germans, for restoring the vigour of a wearied horse; and he made bold to dip the bread in wine, which, on those beasts that would take it, seemed to produce a very great effect.
After halting for two hours, the march was renewed; and wending slowly onward, they reached the small town--for it was then a town--of Gonlieu, having accomplished a distance of nearly eighteen leagues. It was within half an hour of midnight when they arrived, and the good people of the place had to be roused from their beds to provide them with lodgings; but a party of two hundred men-at-arms was not in that day to be refused anything they might think fit to require; and, in the different houses and stables of the town, they were all at length comfortably housed.
Richard of Woodville was not one of those men who require long sleep to refresh them after any ordinary fatigue; and though, with the care and attention of an Arab, he spent a full hour in inspecting the treatment of his horses before he lay down to rest, yet, after a quiet repose of about four hours and a half, he awoke, and instantly sprang from the pallet which had been provided for him. He then immediately roused the young Lord of Lens, who, with five or six others, slept in the same chamber; but the poor youth gazed wildly round him, at first seeming to have forgotten where he was; and it required a hint from his English friend, that the old Lord of Roucq was a man likely to be up early in the day, ere he could make up his mind to rise.
Woodville and his companion had been in the stable about five minutes, and were just setting the half-awakened horse-boys to their work, when a voice was heard at the open door, saying, "This is well!--this is as it should be!" and, turning round, they saw the figure of the old knight moving slowly away to the quarters of another party.