I hesitated.
"What, youth!" exclaimed the governor, "do you hesitate?"
"Yes, by St. George! I do; for I know not whether I can, with honour, make such a promise."
"Tush, youth," said the governor, "you are over-scrupulous. Think of William Montacute, the great Earl of Salisbury, and one of your king's foremost barons. He was long a prisoner in the Châtelet, in Paris; and you may have heard of Salisbury's captivity. While he lay in the Châtelet, his countess, whom Englishmen called Katherine the Fair, had the misfortune to bewitch the King of England by her beauty, but with no will of her own."
"The countess," said I, "was chaste as the snow on the top of Cheviot."
"But, however that may have been," continued the governor—"and I question it not—it was at length agreed that Salisbury should be exchanged for the Earl of Moray, on condition of taking an oath never again to serve against France; and such an oath he took."
"Well," said I, after a pause, "my lord of Salisbury was a puissant earl, and I am a nameless page; and, though naught should, or ought to, tempt me to do what my conscience disapproved, merely because it had been done by a great lord; yet, seeing not how it can be inconsistent with my honour to accept your terms, such as they are, and to do your errand, such as you describe it, I cannot but deem that, in accepting your terms and promising to do your errand, I am acting rightly."
"Credit me, you are acting rightly," said the governor.
Next morning I was mounted soon after sunrise, and, with the Countess of Hainault's epistles to Queen Philippa in my custody, I was, under the protection of an escort of horse, riding towards the seaside to embark in a ship that lay at anchor, and ready to sail for the English coast.