"But why did you come on foot, dear Jean?" cried Agnes, clinging to him. "It was not for want of money, was it? Oh, I would gladly have sold all those pretty things you gave me long ago, to have bought a horse for you, though our dear mother says we must save every thing we can in order to pay your ransom."
"No, dear child, no," replied Jean Charost. "There were other reasons for my coming on foot. I could not come with my lance in my hand, and my pennon and my band behind me; and for a solitary traveler, well dressed, and mounted on a good horse, it is dangerous to cross the country between Harfleur and Bourges. But it is vain to think of saving my ransom. My only hope is to get it diminished, and then to obtain the means of paying it--both through Jacques Cœur."
"Diminished!" said Madame De Brecy, eagerly. "Is there a chance of that?"
Her son explained to her that a conference had already taken place between the dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy, with a view to arrange the terms of peace. "Jacques Cœur," he said, "has great influence with our own royal prince, and I believe that I myself stand not ill with his highness of Burgundy, although, Heaven knows, I have never sought his favor. If the dauphin will condescend--as perhaps he ought--to make the liberation, upon moderate ransom, of several gentlemen taken at Azincourt a stipulation in the treaty, I think I have a fair claim to be among them. There is another interview, I find, to take place in a few days, and I must not miss the opportunity. I bear his highness letters from his cousin the young Duke of Orleans, and several other gentlemen of high repute. Let us hope then, my mother, at least till hope proves vain. Here will I rest to-night, and speed onward again to-morrow. Perhaps I may lose my labor, and have to travel back--to England and to captivity."
"Then we will go with you, Jean," said Madame De Brecy. "You shall stay no more alone in a prison."
"Yes, yes, let us go with you," cried Agnes, eagerly, drowning Jean Charost's reply. "We can all be as happy there as here. It is not the walls, or the earth, that make a cheerful home. It is the spirits that are in it."
"Thou art a young philosopher." said Jean Charost, with a smile; "but we will see."
The next morning Jean Charost was upon his way toward Monterreau, still dressed in his monkish garb--for the proverb proved true in his case--but now mounted on an old mule, the very beast that had carried the Duke of Orleans on the night of his assassination. It had been given to him by the duchess when last he saw her, and when she felt the hand of death pressing heavily upon her.
The journey was too much for one day--twenty-three leagues, as they counted them in those days, when leagues were leagues, and they had kings in France--but Jean Charost resolved to push on as fast as possible; and by night of the second day he had reached the small town of Moret, whence a short morning's ride would bring him to Monterreau.
It was dark when he arrived; but the small village was full of armed men, and round the doors of many of the houses were assembled gay groups, some seated on the ground, some on benches, some on empty barrels, laughing, drinking, and singing, with all the careless merriment of soldiery in an hour of peace. Lights burned in the windows; lanterns, and sometimes torches, were out at the doors, and the yellow harvest moon was rolling along the sky, and shedding from her golden chariot-wheels a glorious flood of light.