Bertrand and Robin Raguenel rode southwest from Dinan, holding towards Montcontour, so that they should come on Josselin from the west. All about Ploermel, and even to the walls of Rennes, Bamborough’s English and Croquart’s ruffians were still burning and plundering, and driving the wretched peasantry like sheep before them. Montfort’s English had been very bitter against the Bretons since Dagworth’s death, vowing that he had fallen through treachery, and that Brittany should pay the price in blood.

The sun was setting on the Friday before Passion Sunday, when Bertrand and Robin came to the little town of LoudÉac and sought out a lodging for the night. They were guided to an inn on the north of the market square, and given a private chamber, as befitted young Raguenel’s rank. The lad had shown a strange temper all the way from Dinan, his face like an April sky, now all sunshine, now all gloom. Moments of gusty gayety alternated with morose and restless silence. Bertrand had done what he could to humor the lad, without letting him suspect that he was troubled for the part he would play at the Oak of Mivoie.

Robin drifted into a reckless mood that night at LoudÉac. He called for much wine and showed the innkeeper an open purse. The servants stirred themselves to honor “my lord,” who was to fight for Brittany on Josselin Moors. The innkeeper, a shrewd old pimp, who wished his guests to be amused, sent up a couple of dancing-girls to the chamber after supper. Bertrand looked black when the girls came in to them, giggling and twitching their bright-colored skirts. It was customary at many inns to keep such ladies, and young Robin laughed at them, his head half turned with wine.

“Hallo, wicked ones! Come and sit by me. You can dance and sing for a gentleman, eh? To be sure, Mistress Red-stockings, you have a pretty pair of ankles. Who calls for muscatel and good Bordeaux? Bertrand, fill up your cup.”

The women were ready enough to make play for Robin, seeing that he was a handsome fellow and two parts drunk. Bertrand, however, had no desire to see the lad preyed upon by such a pair of harpies. Ignoring their oglings and their tittering, he went to the door and shouted for the innkeeper, and gave the man a look that did not miscarry.

“None of your tricks, my friend; we have no purses to be picked. What we have ordered we have ordered, but these delicacies are not to our taste.”

The man looked at Robin, who had taken the girl with the red stockings on his knee.

“But, my lord yonder—seems satisfied.”

“Robin, let the girl go.”

The lad quailed before Bertrand’s eyes, and surrendered to him sheepishly, yet not without some show of spite.

“Now, Sir Shepherd, out with your sheep.”

The innkeeper saw that Bertrand was in no mood to be trifled with, and that he was the master of the situation so far as Robin was concerned. He beckoned the women out, pulling a wry face, yet outwardly obsequious as any son of Mammon. The women followed him, tossing their ribbons and looking saucily at Bertrand, whose ugly face was like a block of stone. Their insolence was nothing to him, for he had drunk the dregs of recklessness and thrown the cup away.

Robin was sitting sulkily before the fire, biting his nails and glancing at Bertrand out of the corners of his eyes. He knew that the elder man was in the right, and yet Bertrand’s mastery chafed his pride.

“You meddle rather much, messire,” he said.

Bertrand went up to him with the air of a brother, a good-humored smile softening his face.

“Nonsense, Robin; you are a little hot in the head. No more wine, lad; I ask it as a favor. Who kissed you last—was it not your sister?”

Robin shuddered, and sat staring at the fire.

“You are right, Bertrand,” he said. “By God, I was going to Mivoie with a harlot’s kisses on my mouth!”

“No, no, lad, you have the true stuff in you. Come to bed; we must not waste our sleep.”

It was some time after midnight when Bertrand woke with a start and lay listening in the darkness of the room. A voice was babbling in the silence of the night, making a hoarse whispering like dead leaves shivering in a frosty wind. Bertrand’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and he could see Robin half kneeling, half lying upon the bed. The lad was praying like a man in the extremity of terror.

“Oh, Lady of Heaven, pardon all my sins. I am young, and I have erred often, and often I have prayed with a cold heart. Mea culpa! mea culpa! Lord Jesu watch over me at the Oak of Mivoie. It is terrible, very terrible, to be afraid, but I have taken the oath, and all men will mock me if I fail. St. Malo, hear me; I will build a chapel to thee if I come back safe from Mivoie.”

To such whimperings Bertrand listened as he lay motionless in bed. Robin’s whispering terror troubled him; he grieved for the lad, yet knew not what to do. If Robin had his sister’s heart, there would be no quailings, no shivering prayers at midnight, no grovelling on the floor. Bertrand lay listening, half tempted to speak to the lad. He held his words, however, and watched till Robin climbed back with chattering teeth to bed. Bertrand betrayed nothing of what he had seen or heard when they rose to dress and arm that morning, though his heart misgave him when he saw the lad’s red eyes and drooping mouth. He began to be keenly afraid for the lad’s courage, lest it should fail utterly and bring shame on Robin and on those who loved him.

They rode out through Loudeac after paying the reckoning at the inn. Robin’s spirits revived somewhat as they went through the narrow streets and the townsfolk cheered them and waved their caps.

“Grace to the Breton gentlemen!”

“God bless ye, sirs, at the Oak of Mivoie!”

The glory of it all brought a flush to Robin’s cheeks. He looked handsome enough in his new armor, his horse going proudly, with trappings of green and gold. His manhood stiffened; his blood came more blithely from his heart. Had he not a part to play, a cause to champion? Men looked for great things from him, trusted to his word. Robin’s pride kindled as he rode through the streets of Loudeac, and Bertrand, watching him, felt glad.

It was when they were free of the town and plunged into the woodlands that Robin’s courage began to wane once more. Loudeac had been full of life and the stir thereof, but here in the deeps of the mysterious woods there was nothing but silence and loneliness about him. The wind sighed in the beech-trees; the firs waved their solemn boughs. The damp grass and the sodden leaves were as yet unbrightened by many flowers. The pitiful thinness of the lad’s courage grew more plain as the hours went by.

Bertrand talked hard, and tried to make young Raguenel more ready for the morrow. He told him of the tussles he had come through unharmed and of the many times that he had seen the English beaten. And Croquart—what was Croquart the Fleming that they should talk so much of him? The fellow was only a butcher’s brat; he had learned to use the knife and the cleaver, and boasted the insolence of a scullion. Brittany had as good men as Croquart, Calverly, and all the gang of them. Bertrand took no heed of Robin’s frailty, but held forth strenuously, as though fired by his own convictions. Yet the more he talked the deeper grew the lad’s depression.

About noon they halted beside a stream where moor and woodland met, watered their horses, and made a meal. Robin ate but little, and seemed to have no heart to talk. Bertrand ignored his restless manner and the weak twitching of his lower lip. He gave the lad little time for reflection, feeling that Robin’s courage leaked like wine out of a cracked jar.

“Come, we must make Josselin before dark.”

Robin dragged himself up from the foot of a tree. He went slowly towards his horse, walking with no spring at the knees, his chin down upon his chest. Bertrand’s back was turned for the moment, for he was tightening his saddle-girths, that had worked slack since the morning. Robin glanced at him, with the look of a hunted thing in his eyes. He stooped, lifted up his horse’s left fore foot, and plunged the point of his poniard into the frog.

Bertrand turned to find Robin’s horse plunging and rearing, with his master hanging to the bridle.

“Hallo, lad, what’s amiss?”

Robin, fearful lest Bertrand should guess his treachery, patted the beast’s neck and coaxed him back into control.

“By the saints, Hoel is dead lame!”

He tugged at the bridle and walked the horse to and fro, gloating inwardly at the way the poor brute hobbled.

“What’s to be done?”

Bertrand marched up without a word, lifted the beast’s fore foot, and saw the bleeding hoof. His mouth hardened as he turned on Robin, grim but very quiet.

“Show me your poniard.”

The lad stared at him, his lower lip a-droop.

“My poniard?”

“Yes.”

“Upon my soul, messire—”

He had flushed crimson, and was shaking at the knees, nor did Bertrand need to press his guilt. He stood looking at Robin, contemptuous, yet moved to pity, debating inwardly what he should do.

“Well, messire, a nice trick this, laming your own horse! I will get you to Josselin to-night, even if I have to carry you.”

“Bertrand, I—My God, I cannot go, I am not fit!”

He broke down utterly of a sudden, and threw himself upon the grass, burying his face in his arms, and sobbing like a girl. Bertrand had never seen such cowardice before; it was new and strange to him, and the very pitiableness of it shocked his manhood.

“Come, lad, come,” and he bent down and tried to turn him over.

Robin squirmed away like a frightened cur.

“I can’t, I can’t! Don’t jeer at me; let me be!”

“What! You will break your oath?”

The lad’s shoulders only twitched the more, and he buried his face yet deeper in his arms.

“For God’s sake, lad, stand up and play the man. What will they say of you at Dinan?”

It was all useless, useless as trying to turn milk into wine. Robin lay snivelling on the grass, all the manhood gone from him, his fine armor a veritable mockery, his whole body palsied by abject fear. Even Bertrand’s taunts could sting no courage into him. Robin Raguenel was a coward; Bertrand knew the truth.

He stood looking at the lad, disgust and pity warring together on his face. Was this the brother TiphaÏne loved, and for whom he had promised to risk his life! Once more in despair he tried to rouse the lad, yet doubting in his heart that any good would come of it.

“So, Robin”—and he spoke gently—“you will let your father know that you are a coward?”

Robin groaned, but did not stir.

“Well—and your sister, she is proud of you?”

“Mercy, have mercy!” And the taunts only brought forth more snivellings and tears.

“Then you will break your oath to Beaumanoir, messire?”

“Yes, curse him, why did the fool choose me?”

Bertrand turned from Robin with a half-uttered oath, picked up his spear, and moved towards his horse. There was no help for it; he must leave the coward to his shame. They needed men, not girls, at Mivoie.