"Arthur!" replied the soldier, and dismounted by the watch-fire. Hugo de Barre sprang on his horse, and proceeded on his round; while De Coucy, casting himself down in the blaze, prepared to watch out the night by the sentinel, who was now called to the guard.
It were little amusing to trace De Coucy's thoughts. A knight of that day would have deemed it almost a disgrace to divide the necessary anxieties of the profession of arms, with any other idea than that of his lady love. However the caustic pen of Cervantes, whose chivalrous spirit--of which, I am bold to say, no man ever originally possessed more--had early been crushed by ingratitude and disappointment, however his pen may have given an aspect of ridicule to the deep devotion of the ancient knights towards the object of their love, however true it may be that that devotion was not always of as pure a kind as fancy has pourtrayed it; yet the love of the chivalrous ages was a far superior feeling to the calculating transaction so termed in the present day; and if, perhaps, it was rude in its forms and extravagant in its excess, it had at least the energy of passion, and the sublimity of strength. De Coucy watched and listened; but still, while he did so, he thought of Isadore of the Mount, and he called up her loveliness, her gentleness, her affection. Every glance of her soft dark eyes, every tone of her sweet lip, was food for memory; and the young knight deemed that surely for such glances and such tones a brave man might conquer the world.
The night, as we have seen, had been sultry, and the sky dark; and it was now waxing towards morning; but no cool breeze announced the fresh rising of the day. The air was heavy and close, as if charged with the matter for a thousand storms; and the wind was as still as if no quickening wing had ever stirred the thick and lazy atmosphere. Suddenly a sort of rolling sound seemed to disturb the air, and De Coucy sprang upon his feet to listen. A moment of silence elapsed, and then a bright flash of lightning blazed across the sky, followed by a clap of thunder. De Coucy listened still. "It could not be distant thunder," he thought,--"the sound he had first heard. He had seen no previous lightning."
He now distinctly heard a horse's feet coming towards him; and, a moment after, the voice of Hugo de Barre speaking to some one else. "Come along, Sir Gallon, quick!" cried he. "You must tell it to my lord himself. By Heaven! if 'tis a jest, you should not have made it; and if 'tis not a jest, he must hear it."
"Ha, haw!" cried Gallon the fool.--"Ha, haw! If 'tis a jest, 'tis the best I ever made, for it is true,--and truth is the best jest in the calendar.--Why don't they make Truth a saint, Hugo? Haw, haw! Haw, haw! When I'm pope, I'll make St. Truth to match St. Ruth; and when I've done, I shall have made the best saint in the pack.--Haw, haw! Haw, haw! But, by the Lord! some one will soon make St. Lie to spite me; and no one will pray to St. Truth afterwards.--Haw! haw! haw!--But there's De Coucy standing by the watch-fire, like some great devil in armour, broiling the souls of the damned.--Haw! haw! haw!"
"What is the matter, Hugo?" cried the knight, advancing. "Why are you dragging along poor Gallon so?
"Because poor Gallon lets him," cried the juggler, freeing himself from the squire's grasp, by one of his almost supernatural springs. "Haw, haw! Where's poor Gallon now?"--and he bounded up to the place where the knight stood, and cast himself down by the fire, exclaiming,--"Oh rare! 'Tis a sweet fire, in this sultry night.--Haw, haw! Are you cold, De Coucy?"
"I am afraid, my lord, there is treason going forward," said Hugo de Barre, riding up to his master, and speaking in a low voice. "I had scarce left you, when Gallon came bounding up to me, and began running beside my horse, saying, in his wild way, he would tell me a story. I heeded him little at first; but when he began to tell me that this Brabançois--this Jodelle--has not been lying wounded a-bed, but has been away these two days on horseback, and came back into the town towards dusk last night, I thought it right to bring him hither."
"You did well," cried De Coucy,--"you did well! I will speak with him--I observed some movement amongst the Brabançois as we returned. Go quietly, Hugo, and give a glance into their huts, while I speak with the juggler.--Ho, good Gallon, come hither?"
"You won't beat me?" cried Gallon,--"ha?"