At Tours, we have seen De Coucy despatch his page towards the Count d'Auvergne; and at Compiègne we have seen the same youth deliver a letter to that nobleman. But we must here pause, to trace more particularly the course of the messenger, which, in truth, was not near so direct as at first may be imagined.
There was, at the period referred to, a little hostelry in the town of Château du Loir, which was neat and well-furnished enough for the time it flourished in.[[21]] It had the most comfortable large hearth in the world, which, in those days, was the next great excellence in a house of general reception to that of having good wine, which always held the first place; and round this--on each side of the fire, as well as behind it--was a large stone seat, that might accommodate well fifteen or sixteen persons on a cold evening. At the far corner of this hearth, one night in the wane of September, when days are hot and evenings are chilly, sat a fair youth of about eighteen years of age, for whom the good hostess, an honest, ancient dame, that always prayed God's blessing on a pair of rosy cheeks, was mulling some spiced wine, to cheer him after a long and heavy day's riding.
"Ah, now! I warrant thee," said the good lady, adjusting the wood embers carefully round the little pipkin, on the top of which just began to appear a slight creaming foam, promising a speedy conclusion to her labours--"ay, now! I warrant thee, thou hast seen them all--the fair lady Isadore, and pretty mistress Alice, the head maid, and little Eleanor, with her blue eyes. Ha, sir page, you redden! I have touched thee, child. God bless thee, boy! never blush to be in love. Your betters have been so before thee; and I warrant little Eleanor would blush too. God bless her, and St. Luke the apostate! Oh, bless thee, my boy, I know them all! God wot they stayed here, master and man, two days, while they were waiting for news from the king John; and old Sir Julian himself vowed he was as well here as in the best castle of France or England."
"Well, well, dame! I have ridden hard back, at all events," replied the page; "and I will make my horse's speed soon catch up, between this and Paris, the day and a half I have lingered here; so that my noble lord cannot blame me for loitering on his errand."
"Tut, tut! He will never know a word," cried the old dame, applying to the page that sort of consolatory assurance that our faults will rest unknown, which has damned many a one, both man and woman, in this world--"he will never know a word of it; and, if he did, he would forgive it. Lord, Lord! being a knight, of course he is in love himself; and knows what love is. God bless him, and all true knights! I say."
"Oh, in love--to be sure he is!" replied the page. "Bless thee, dame! when we came all hot from the Holy Land, like loaves out of an oven, my lord no sooner clapped his eyes upon the lady Isadore, than he was in love up to the ears, as they say. Ay! and would ride as far to see her, as I would to see little Eleanor. But tell me, dame, have you staked the door as I asked you?"
"Latch down, and bolt shot!" answered the old lady; "but what shouldst thou fear, poor child? Thou art not of king John's friends, that I well divine; but, bless thee! every one who has passed, this blessed day, says they are moving the other way; though, in good troth, I have no need to say God be thanked; for the heavy Normans, and the thirsty English, would sit here and drink me pot after pot, and it mattered not what wine I gave them--Loiret was as good as Beaugency. God bless them all, and St. Luke the apostate! as I said. So what need'st thou fear, boy?"
"Why, I'll tell thee, good dame. If they caught me, and knew I was the De Coucy's man, they would hang me up, for God's benison," said the page; "and I narrowly escaped on the road too. Five mounted men, with their arms covered with soldiers' mantles,--though they looked like knights, and rode like knights too,--chased me for more than a mile. They had a good score of archers at their backs; and I would have dodged them across the country, but every little hill I came to, I saw a body of horse on all sides, moving pace by pace with them. Full five hundred men, I counted one way and another; and there might be five hundred more, for aught I know."
"Now, St. Barbara's toe nail to St. Luke's shoulder bone," exclaimed the hostess, mingling somewhat strangely the relics which she was accustomed to venerate with the profane wagers of the soldiery who frequented her house--"now, St. Barbara's toe nail to St. Luke's shoulder bone, that these are the men whom my lodger upstairs expected to come to-night!"
"What lodger?" cried the page anxiously. "Dame, dame, you told me, this very morning, you had none!"