The journey was long and tedious, and the daily stages of the party necessarily short. Their route lay through a wild, half-cultivated country, which seemed to owe much to the hand of nature, but little to that of man. There was an ever-recurring succession, day after day, of dreary, wide-spreading forests, with comparatively narrow spaces between, which, from the imperfect and doubtful traces of industry which they exhibited, seemed as if but lately reclaimed from a state of nature. Groups of miserable serfs, bound to the soil even more rigidly than their fellow-slaves the cattle, were plying their unskilful and unproductive labours in the fields. They passed scattered assemblages of dingy hovels, with here and there a grim feudal tower rising in the midst—giving evidence, by the strength of its defences, of the insecurity and turbulence of the time. The travellers they met with were but few. Occasionally a strolling troubadour or harper accompanied them part of the way, on his journey from one baronial castle to another. At times, they met with armed parties of travelling merchants, bound for some distant fair; at times with disbanded artisans, wandering about in quest of employment; soldiers in search of a master; or pilgrims newly returned from Palestine, attired in cloaks of grey, and bearing the scallop in their caps. The hind, their attendant, bore in his scrip, from stage to stage, their provisions for the day; and their evenings were passed in some rude hostelry by the way-side. The third week had passed, ere, one evening on the edge of twilight, they alighted at the hostel of St Denis, and ascertained, from mine host, that they were now within half a stage of Paris.
The hostel was crowded with travellers; and the ladies and Clelland, for the early part of the evening, were fain to take their places in the common room beside the fire. A young and handsome troubadour, whose jemmy jerkin, and cap of green, edged with silver, shewed that he was either one of the more wealthy of his class, or under the patronage of some rich nobleman, and who had courteously risen to yield place to Bertha, had succeeded in reseating himself beside the knight.
"The hostel swarms with company," said Clelland, addressing him—"pray, good minstrel, canst tell me the occasion? Is there a fair holds to-morrow?"
"Ah, Sir Knight," said the minstrel, "I should rather ask of thee, seeing thy tongue shews thee to be a Scot. Dost not know that thy countryman, the brave Wallace of Elderslie, is at court, and that all who can, in any wise, leave their homes for a season, are leaving them, to see him? It is not once in a lifetime that such a knight may be looked at. And, besides, have you not heard that the combat comes on to-morrow?"
"I have heard of nothing," said Clelland; "my route has lain, of late, through the remoter parts of the country. What combat?"
"Sir Thomas de Longoville, so long a true soldier of the cross—so long, too, a wandering pirate—has defied to mortal combat, Loithaire of Languedoc; and our fair Philip, through the intercession of Wallace, has granted him the lists."
Both the ladies started at the intelligence; and the elder, wrapping up her face in her mantle, bent her head well nigh to her knee.
"And how, good minstrel," said Bertha, in a voice tremulous from anxiety, "how is it thought the combat will go?"
"That rests with Heaven, fair lady," said the minstrel. "Loithaire is known far and wide, as a striker in the lists; but who has not also heard of De Longoville, and his wars with the fierce Saracen? Many seem to think, too, that he has been foully injured by Loithaire. That soul of knightly honour, the good Lord Jonville, has already renewed his friendship with him, as his friend and comrade in the battles of Palestine, and will attend him to-morrow in the lists."
"May all the saints reward him!" ejaculated the elder lady.