In the Abbot’s parlor at Lehon there was a window that looked out upon the abbey garden, with its sunny stretch of turf, broad beds of herbs and vegetables, its barrier of aspen-trees about the orchard, an orchard rich in Pucelle de Flanders, St. Reols, and Caillon pears, cherries, and quinces, and pearmain apples. At this same window stood the Abbot Stephen, and behind him, half in the shadow, a girl in a gray hood and cloak and a man in black and rusty harness. The window was shaded, moreover, by a swinging lattice and by the red flowers and green leaves of a climbing rose, whose tendrils wavered athwart the blue of the summer sky.

Below, in the garden, between two broad bands of beans in flower, a young man in a russet-colored cassock was stooping over an onion-bed, holding a basket woven of osier twigs in one hand, while with the other he pulled up weeds. From time to time he stood up as though to stretch himself, or took to crawling between the rows, pushing the basket before him and throwing the weeds into it as he worked. The cowl of the cassock was turned back, leaving his head with its cropped hair bare to the sun.

The man weeding the onion-bed was Robin Raguenel; those who watched him, Bertrand du Guesclin and Robin’s sister.

The crawling figure, in its brown cassock, hardly suggested the young Breton noble who had ridden out to fight at Mivoie in all the splendor and opulence of arms. Robin had changed the sword for the hoe, the helmet for a basket of osiers. In lieu of cantering to the cry of trumpets over the Breton moors, he crawled across the cabbage and onion beds of the abbey of Lehon, the sun scorching his rough cassock, his nails rimmed with dirt, his sandalled feet brown with the warm earth of the garden. Here was a transfiguration that challenged the pride of the worldly-hearted.

“Pax Dei.”

Abbot Stephen crossed himself, beholding in TiphaÏne’s eyes a certain unpleased pity, as though the crawling figure of her brother had made her set the past beside the present.

Abbot Stephen looked at her steadily and smiled.

“You are offended for your brother’s sake,” he said.

Her eyes were on Robin, who had squatted on his heels to rest, and was staring vacantly into the basket half filled with weeds.

“Offended, father?”

“There is more wisdom, child, in this penance than the mere eye can see.”

She still watched Robin, an expression of poignant pity upon her face.

“The change is so sudden to me,” she said.

Stephen of Lehon spread his hands with a gesture of fatherly assent.

“And yet, my daughter, there is wisdom in this work of his. Your brother’s pride is in the dust, and in the dust man’s humbleness may find that subtle and mysterious seed that has its flowering when the heart is sad.”

“It is difficult for me, father, not to grudge the past.”

“Is there, then, no glory, child, save in the service of the sword?”

He looked at her with an amiable austerity whose humaneness had not hardened into the mere dogmatism of the priest. Abbot Stephen still boasted the instinctive sympathy of youth. As for TiphaÏne, she glanced at Bertrand, who had drawn back into the room, arguing in her heart that it was better to fight God’s battle in the world than to dream dreams in a religious house.

“Christ our Lord was but a carpenter.” And the Abbot crossed himself.

“I remember it.”

“In the simple things of life the heart finds comfort. A sinless working with the hands leads to a sinless working of the soul. It was the lad himself who prayed me to give him work to do.”

She put her hands together as though in prayer.

“My brother must know his own needs,” she said. “It is better to work than to sulk like a sick hawk upon a perch.”

“Child, that is the right spirit.”

And he stood to bless her, with no complacent unction, but with heart of grace.

For a while she looked at Robin kneeling on the naked earth, her silence seeming to confess that she was more content to leave him in the Church’s keeping.

“I go now to La BelliÈre,” she said, quietly.

“You have a double share, my child, to give and to receive.”

“God grant that I may remember it,” and she turned to Bertrand with a stately lifting of the head.

At La BelliÈre the sky was an open wealth of blue, the aspens all a-whisper. And yet, with summer reddening the lips of June, the sorrow of the place was still like the sighing of a wind through winter trees on a winter evening. Logs burned in the great fireplace of the solar. Stephen Raguenel, looking like some December saint, craved from the flames that warmth that life and the noon sun could not give.

The turrets were casting long shadows towards the east when dust rose on the road from Dinan. A few peasants were running in advance of a knight and a lady who wound between the aspen-trees towards the towers and chimneys of La BelliÈre. Soon there came the sound of men shouting, the clatter of hoofs on the bridge before the gate. The starlings and jackdaws wheeled and chattered about the chimneys. It was as though the chÂteau had slept under some wizard’s spell, to awake suddenly at the sounding of a hero’s horn.

Girard, discretion among the discreet, was craning out of a turret window, his face like a vociferous gargoyle spouting from a wall. He saw madame’s palfrey, the cloak with its crimson lining, and understood that Croquart had been cheated of a ransom.

Girard ran down the tower stair two steps at a time, bruised his forehead—without swearing—against the cross-beam of a door, and reached the great court in time to see TiphaÏne and the man in the black harness ride in through the gate.

“Assuredly this is God’s doing.” And Girard crossed himself before running forward to join his fellow-servants in frightening the starlings, who were unaccustomed to so much shouting.

“Madame, this is God’s doing.”

He kissed the hem of her cloak, and was asked but a single question in return:

“Girard, my father?”

“Now that madame has come back to us my lord the Vicomte will most surely live.”

She left the saddle and bade Bertrand follow her. But the man in the black harness held back, feeling that he was a stranger amid the curious and many faces that filled the court-yard of La BelliÈre.

“Go,” he said to her. “I will wait my time.”

“Perhaps it is better.”

“Yes, that you should go to him alone.”

Girard, sparkling like a well-polished flagon, and brimful of exultation, presented his homage to the gentleman on the black horse. All the La BelliÈre servants had been told the truth. Messire Bertrand du Guesclin could have commanded more devotion at that moment than Charles of Blois himself.

“The grace of God to you, messire,” and Girard’s face carried more than a servile blessing.

The men made the turrets ring.

“God and St. Ives for the Eagle of Cancale!”

They crowded round, each trying to hold his stirrup or bridle or to take his spear. Their enthusiasm grew bolder as the contact became more intimate. Two of the tallest men soon had Bertrand upon their shoulders, and carried him in triumph to the dais in the great hall.

Girard’s bald pate glistened with obeisances.

“Would my lord eat and drink?”

Bertrand accepted the suggestion. He felt it embarrassing, this setting-up of him like an idol to be stared at unwinkingly by so many pairs of eyes. If the god ate, they would at least see that he was half-human like themselves.

“My good-fellow, honest men are always thirsty.”

And had it been possible they would have emptied a hogshead of Bordeaux down Bertrand’s throat by way of testifying their devotion.

Even the cook, gardeners, and dairy-women crowded “the screens” to catch a glimpse of Bertrand as he sat at the high table. They watched him eat and drink as though he were an ogre, whispering together, peeping over one another’s shoulders. Bertrand, who had none of the spirit of the mock hero, chafed under this flattering publicity, being in no humor to be gaped at like a black bear in a cage.

“My good-fellow, do people ever eat here?”

Girard flourished a napkin and looked puzzled.

“Ah, messire—”

“These friends of yours seem to grudge me my hunger by the way they push and stare.”

Girard took the hint and closed the doors on the array of inquisitive faces. He returned and made his bow.

“Messire du Guesclin must pardon the people. Messire du Guesclin is a great soldier and a hero.”

“Nonsense, sir,” and Bertrand laughed half foolishly at Girard’s magniloquent respect.

“Messire, you have a modest heart.”

“Modest heart!—to the devil with you!”

“And a courage that will not be flattered.”

Bertrand picked up his wine-cup and held it towards Girard.

“Enough, friend,” he said; “I am clumsy at catching compliments. Drink to all good Bretons. That will please me better.”

And Girard drank, his eyes looking at Bertrand over the rim of the cup.

It was then that the door leading to the stairway behind the dais opened, showing TiphaÏne in a green gown, a red girdle about her waist.

“Bertrand.”

He saw at once that she had been weeping, though her eyes shone like a clear sky after rain.

“Come.”

Bertrand followed her without a word. She climbed the stairs and halted on the threshold of the solar, her hand on the latch of the closed door.

“My father has asked for you.”

The man before her appeared far more distrustful of himself than if he had been called to lead the forlornest of forlorn hopes.

“You will find him changed.”

“Am I to go alone?”

“If you wish it.”

Bertrand’s face betrayed his unwillingness.

“I would rather—”

“I came with you?”

And she took his hand.

Stephen Raguenel was sitting in his chair before the fire, with the look of a man exhausted by too sudden and great a joy. Tears were still shining on his cheeks. Bertrand felt more afraid of him than of a weeping girl.

“Father, I have brought Bertrand to you.”

The old man would have risen; his hands were already on the arms of his chair. Bertrand, a great rush of pity sweeping away his awkwardness, went to him and knelt like a stripling beside the Vicomte’s chair.

“Sire—”

Stephen Raguenel laid his hands upon Bertrand’s shoulders. His eyes had a blind and vacant look. It was the wreck of a face that Bertrand saw gazing into his.

“It is you, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin?”

“It is I, sire.”

“We owe you much, my TiphaÏne and I.”

“Sire, let us not speak of it,” and his mouth quivered, for he saw in the old man’s eyes the yearning of a father for his son.

“No, messire, our honor is with us yet. We give you that gratitude of which God alone can know the depth. Child, is not that so?”

TiphaÏne had slipped behind him, and stood leaning upon the carved back of the chair. Her hands rested on her father’s shoulders. He drew them down with his and looked up wistfully into her face.

“Bertrand braved more than death for us,” she said.

“For the lad Robin’s sake.”

“Yes, for him.”

He lay back in his chair with his eyes closed, his breathing slow and regular like the breathing of one who sleeps. Bertrand had risen, and was leaning against the carved hood of the chimney. He remembered vividly that night, not many weeks, ago when the old man had gloried in the promise of his son.

TiphaÏne’s hands were smoothing her father’s hair. The touch of those hands brought a smile to the old man’s face. He opened his eyes to look at her, and in that look the heart of the father seemed to drink in peace.

Bertrand turned, and went stealthily towards the door. He opened it gently, and left them alone together.