"Here are foot-marks, both of horse and foot," cried Hugo de Barre, "and lately trodden too, for scarce a fold of the moss has risen since."
"Coming or going?" cried De Coucy, spurring up to the spot.
"Both, my lord," replied the squire. "Here are hoof marks all ways."
Without wasting time in endeavouring to ascertain which traces were the last imprinted, De Coucy took such precautions as the scantiness of his followers permitted for ensuring that the cotereaux did not make their escape by some other outlet; and then boldly plunged in on horseback, following through the bushes, as well as he could, the marks that the band had left behind them when they decamped. He was not long in making his way to the open space, surrounded with huts, which we have before described. The state of the whole scene at once showed, that it had been but lately abandoned; though the unroofing of the hovels evinced that its former tenants entertained no thought of making it any more their dwelling-place.
In the centre of the opening, however, stood the staff of a lance, on the end of which was fixed a scroll of parchment, written in very fair characters to the following effect:--
"Sire de Coucy! hearing of your return to your lands, we leave them willingly--not because we fear you, or any man, but because we respect your knightly prowess, and would not willingly stand in deadly fight against one of the best knights in France."
"By St. Jerome! the knaves are not without their courtesy!" exclaimed De Coucy. "Well, now they are off my land, God speed them!"
"Where the devil did they get the parchment?" muttered Jodelle to himself:--and thus ended the expedition with two exclamations that did not slightly mark the age.
CHAPTER XVI.
There are no truer chameleons than words, changing hue and aspect as the circumstances change around them, and leaving scarce a shade of their original meaning. Piety has at present many acceptations, according to the various lips that pronounce it, and the ears that hear; but in the time of the commonwealth, it meant the grossest fanaticism; and in the time of Philip Augustus, the grossest superstition.