At La BelliÈre the Vicomte’s trumpeters stood in the great court betwixt the hall and the gate-house, and set the walls and turrets ringing.

“Mivoie! Mivoie! Mivoie!” the echoes wailed. “Mivoie! Mivoie!” croaked the jackdaws that roosted in the great octagonal chimneys. “Mivoie!” cried the serving-men, as they carried the lavers and napkins into the hall. La BelliÈre kept festival in Robin’s honor, and every scullion in the kitchen had pieces of silver in his pocket.

The Vicomte’s neighbors, unlike the folk in Biblical history, had ridden in to give the old man joy of his son. There was much washing of hands in the great hall, where the basins were being carried round before the meal by the Vicomte’s servants. The tables were covered with white napery, the walls hung with rich cloth and embroidered hangings, the floor strewn with fresh rushes, primroses, wind flowers, and wild violets. Robin, dressed in a surcoat of green stuff threaded through with gold and with a posy of bay leaves tucked into his girdle, sat in the place of honor at the high table. TiphaÏne, in white samite worked with gold, had come down the stairway from the solar, looking joyous and splendid, with the dames and maidens following in their silks and sarcenets. There were lute-players and men with viols and citherns in the gallery. The trumpets rang out as the servants came in from the screens, bearing the dishes garnished with bays and herbs to the tables.

The Breton gentry had pressed about Robin and his father, pleasing old Stephen in the praising of his son. Robin, feeling like a thief, had made light of the whole matter, meeting almost with impatience the flattery they gave him. He was glad when Father Guillaume stood up to say grace, pattering out his Latin to the edification of few. Stephen Raguenel stood with his hand upon Robin’s shoulder. When Father Guillaume had blessed the puddings—and craved a lively appetite from heaven—the Vicomte lifted his son’s shield, and showed the battered fesse of silver with all the pride of a paternal Jove.

“The grace of our Lady and the blessings of the saints be with you, kinsmen and friends,” he said. “Look at this shield, and you may see how God has blessed me in sending my lad safe through such a shower of blows.”

Robin, fidgeting from foot to foot, felt the eyes of all fixed upon his face. What a terror it was to fear the glances of his fellows and to imagine doubt in every heart! He passed for a modest fellow by reason of his blushes, the men liking him no less because he seemed not to relish the way the Vicomte trumpeted his valor. Robin frowned when his father called for the mazer bowl, enamelled with the arms of the De BelliÈres and banded with silver. Stephen Raguenel held it in both hands and pledged Robin, and sent the mazer round the tables that the guests might drink good luck to his son. On the silver band of the mazer were engraved the words, “Keep troth,” and Robin remembered them, to his cost.

The devil mocked Robin Raguenel that day, taunting him even from his father’s happy face, and turning to scorn the pride in TiphaÏne’s eyes. “Mivoie! Mivoie! Mivoie!” screamed the trumpets in the court, till Robin sent a servant to tell the men to cease their din. Wine came to him, and he drank it, feverishly, fiercely, yet feeling his tongue dry with the lies he had poured into his father’s ears. Behind him, held by a man-at-arms, shone the shield that Bertrand du Guesclin had carried.

Yeolande of Lehon, Robin’s betrothed, sat next him at the high table and ate from the same plate. The girl was very proud of her man before them all, and took no pains to disguise her pride. Her very enthusiasm refined Robin’s torture, for she could not hear enough of the fight at Mivoie, and pestered the lad till he could have cursed her to her face. “How many men had he killed?” “Who were the bravest among the Bretons?” “Who were knighted?” “Would the Sieur de Beaumanoir die of his wounds?” Robin, half mad with inward terror and vexation, described twenty things he had never seen, and tangled his wits in a veritable web of fiction.

The great “ship” was rolling along the table on its gilt wheels, ladened with sweetmeats and spices, when Sir Raoul de Resay, a kinsman of Robin’s, leaned forward across Yeolande’s bosom, and touched Robin’s arm with the silver handle of his knife.

“Messire, a word with you,” he said.

Robin turned to him, ready to be accused at any moment of being a liar and a coward.

“Is it true what they are saying of Bertrand du Guesclin?”

“True! What are they saying, messire?”

Robin was as red as the wine in his cup.

“Why, that Bertrand played the coward and never came to Mivoie.”

Raoul de Resay’s eyes marked Robin’s flushed cheeks and the tremulous movement of his lips. He misread the meaning of the lad’s hot color, thinking that it was the badge royal of a generous heart.

“No, by God, Raoul, Bertrand du Guesclin did not play the coward! His horse fell lame near Loudeac. I left him in the woods there, and have not seen him since.”

Yeolande of Lehon touched Robin’s arms.

“I like to see you flush up like that,” she said, “when a brother in arms is slandered.”

“Slandered! Who spoke of slander, madame?” And Raoul de Resay took the taunt to heart. “I have known cowards, but Bertrand du Guesclin is not one of them.”

For three long hours Robin suffered from the good-will of his friends, and even when La BelliÈre was free of them, the lad still had his father to torment him with affection. Stephen Raguenel had the ways and whims of an old man. Like a child, he was never tired of hearing the same tale retold. Robin was dragged into the solar, held at bay in the broad window-seat, and catechised tenderly till the truth itself was torn to tatters. The lad writhed inwardly under the ordeal, finding each lie the more bitter to his lips. He escaped from the old man at last, and went out into the orchard, letting his hot face cool in the wind.

It was under the apple-trees that TiphaÏne found him, tossing twigs into the pool that reflected the budding bloom above. Robin had said no word to her of Bertrand’s breaking of his oath. She had heard it spoken of for the first time at the high table by Raoul de Resay and others. Hot and angry, she had given the lie to young Prosper of Dinan, who had called Bertrand a coward, and had silenced those who cavilled thoughtlessly at Du Guesclin’s honor.

Robin saw her through the trees and cursed her to himself, guessing that his hypocrisy was to be tested once more. TiphaÏne did not see the spasm of pain that passed across her brother’s face. She was troubled for Bertrand, and angry when she remembered how the spruce young squires had sat in lordly and complacent judgment on a man whom not one of them would have dared to face in arms.

“Robin, they tell me Bertrand did not fight at Mivoie.”

Robin groaned in spirit, and marched out the weary troop of lies once more, watching his sister’s face as she stood leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree. He saw that she was troubled, and, like the guilty coward that he was, began to wonder whether she suspected him.

“Robin, this is bad news to me.”

The lad was breaking twigs from a bough above his head.

“You do not know how much this meant to Bertrand! He had prayed for such honor—prayed for it night and day.”

So absorbed was she for the moment that the rush of shame into her brother’s eyes passed unnoticed. TiphaÏne had turned and stood looking at the pool, whose still waters reflected the apple-boughs and the burning clouds above.

Robin recovered himself and began to whistle.

“A man cannot help a lame horse,” he said.

“A lame horse would not keep Bertrand from Mivoie.”

Robin stopped his whistling, and appeared absorbed in watching the hovering of a hawk above the fields. The bird’s wings were palpitating in the light of the setting sun. She swooped suddenly and dropped from sight below the trees.

“Something has happened to Bertrand.”

Robin started, and pretended not to have understood her.

“Happened!”

“Yes. Bertrand would rather have died than break troth at such an hour.”

The tortures of the day seemed to culminate for Robin at that moment. He had always feared his sister in a measure, and stood half in awe of her stronger will and the unflinching candor of her eyes. Her words were innocent enough, and yet they seemed like knots of steel that wring the truth from some wretch judged to the torture.

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“Perhaps. How should I know? I have had no news of Bertrand since I left him in the woods by Loudeac.”

For the first time TiphaÏne noticed the curious restlessness of her brother’s eyes.

“Robin, you are not yourself.”

He laughed and swept his hand through his hair.

“I spent too much of myself at Mivoie. I am dead tired. What can you expect?”

She looked at him keenly, knitting her brows a little, as though she had caught a falseness in his words.

“Robin, are you hiding anything from me?”

“Hiding! What should I hide?” and his eyes flashed out at her.

“How did Bertrand’s horse fall lame?”

“Stabbed in the foot by a stake.”

“And then?”

“I had to leave him. On my soul, TiphaÏne, I am not a prophet. I cannot tell you what I do not know.”

They heard the Vicomte’s voice calling them from the house, and Robin, trembling like a man saved from death, clutched at the reprieve, and walked back through the orchard. TiphaÏne followed him, slowly, thoughtfully, playing with her silver-sheathed poniard, her eyes fixed upon the ground. Some instinct warned her that Robin had not given her the truth, and she was troubled for Bertrand, wondering what had hindered him from keeping troth with Beaumanoir.

It was the third night after he had left Robin that Bertrand, who had eaten nothing all day, saw the flicker of a fire shining through the trees before him. The cloud of fatalism had thickened about him as the night came down over the tangled woodways of the forest. All the past had risen up before him: the savage sorrows of his boyhood, the coming of TiphaÏne the child, the tournament at Rennes. The years of rough adventure he had spent had seemed only to taunt him with failure and with bitterness. He had thought also of dead Arletta, and how the poor child had died in the autumn deeps of dark Broceliande. Brooding on the past, he had come to think that God’s wrath was heavy on him, and that he was cursed, like Cain, because of his stubborn heart. He had ridden on and on, letting his horse bear him where it would, feeling neither thirst nor hunger nor the weight of his heavy harness. He had drawn out his poniard and felt the point thereof calmly, sullenly, with a balancing of the evils of life and death. He still held the knife in his hand when he sighted the fire, the flames upcurled like the petals of a great flower.

Bertrand reined in and sat motionless in the saddle, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Possibly there was something elemental in the red and restless play thereof, something that flashed comfort into Bertrand’s heart. He clapped his poniard back into its sheath and rode on slowly, his jaded horse pricking up his ears and tugging at the bridle as though scenting water.

Three figures started up from about the fire as Bertrand rode out from under the shadows of the trees. He could see that they were peasants, two men and a girl, and that they were as shy and timid as hunted deer. The younger of the two men brandished a short cudgel, but there was no fight in the poor devils; the English wars had broken the spirit of the Breton poor.

Bertrand shouted to them and waved his hand, wondering at the hoarseness of his own voice.

“A friend! a friend!”

He rode up towards the fire, the light flashing on his armor and weaving giant shadows about his horse. The peasants kept their distance, dread of the mailed fist inbred in their hearts.

Bertrand showed them the eagle on his shield.

“Come, I am a Breton man; you need not run from me. I want food and a place by your fire.”

They came forward grudgingly, one to hold his horse, the other to help him from the saddle. So stiff and faint was he that Bertrand staggered when he touched the earth, and sank down with a groan beside the fire.

The two men stood staring at him stupidly, and it was the girl whose instinct answered to the appeal. She knelt down by Bertrand, to find that he had fainted, his face showing gray and haggard through the mezail of his bassinet. She called to the two men, and they brought her a stone flask full of cider, and helped her to unfasten the laces of Bertrand’s helmet. The girl sat down and lifted Bertrand’s head into her lap. She poured some of the cider between his lips, the woman in her pitying him and taking charge of his wounded manhood. She was still bending over him when Bertrand recovered consciousness, and he felt her hands smoothing back his hair. Rough and toil-lined as her face was, there was something soft and gentle in the eyes. Above him hung this peasant woman’s face—one warm touch against the stolid darkness of the forest. And what did Bertrand do but break down and weep.

The girl held his head in her lap awhile, wonderingly and in silence, till he struggled up, and, looking round him shamefacedly, asked surlily for food. They gave him coarse bread, swine’s flesh, and more cider. He ate ravenously, saying nothing, the peasants watching him, awed by a something they did not understand. Presently Bertrand pointed to his horse; the men caught his meaning, and went to unsaddle the beast and give him water. The girl had turned away, and was throwing sticks upon the fire.

Bertrand called to her when he had finished the last crust that they had given him.

“Child, come hither.”

She turned and stood silent before him, while Bertrand fumbled for the purse he carried at his belt.

“Your name; tell it me.”

“Marie, lording—Marie of the Marshes.”

Bertrand threw her money, with a twist of the hand.

“Take it for the food; God’s blessing go with it. You have done me good, child; now let me sleep.”

And sleep he did, like one of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

The dawn was breaking when Bertrand woke beside the peasant’s fire and heard the birds singing in the thickets. A soft haze of light filled the east, and there were mottlings of crimson above the trees. Bertrand lay still awhile, watching the gold glint of the sunrise through the crowded trunks, while the dew glittered on the green turf and the birds sang lustily. He found that the peasant folk had covered him with an old cloak, and that simple touch of sympathy went to Bertrand’s heart.

The girl Marie came out of the woods singing a Breton song and carrying a bundle of sticks in her bosom. She threw them on the fire, and looked at Bertrand as he sat up and felt his wounded thigh. The night’s rest had put new strength and courage into him. He was no longer the fatalist drugged with the opiate of despair. The golden splendor of the woods, the blue sky, the glistening dew gave a sparkle to life and stirred the joy of being in him.

Scrambling up, he thanked the girl for the cloak, and, looking round him, asked for his horse. Marie of the Marshes pointed to where the beast was tethered, under the shadow of a great beech. Some fifty yards away Bertrand saw a stream flashing through clumps of rushes and tufts of waving sedge. He went down to it and dashed water over his face and neck, finding his wound less painful and the muscles less stiff and sore.

As he walked back to the fire the two peasants came out of the woods with a couple of rabbits they had snared. Bertrand turned to them like an old campaigner and helped the fellows to skin the rabbits and sling an iron pot over the fire. They lost their shyness as he worked with them, for there was a frankness in Bertrand’s manner that appealed to these men of the soil.

They were in the middle of the meal, seated round the fire, with the girl Marie next to Bertrand, when they heard a shout from the woods and saw a bandy-legged old fellow, very ragged and dirty, running towards them over the grass. He had a holly-wood cudgel in his hand, and was followed by a dog that looked more like a wolf, with its long snout, lean build, and bristling coat. The girl started up and kissed the old man on the mouth, a duty that Bertrand did not envy her. After bobbing his head to Bertrand, he came and sat himself down by the fire, while Marie fished a rabbit’s leg out of the pot for him.

When he had gnawed away the flesh in very primitive fashion, he threw the bone to the dog and wiped his greasy beard on the back of his hand. The dog, after crunching the bone, came snuffing round Bertrand, his ears back, his tawny eyes fixed suspiciously on Du Guesclin’s face.

“Ban, you devil, down! down! Pardon, lording, the dog must have his smell at strangers.”

Bertrand held out his hand to the beast, snapping his fingers and looking straight in the dog’s eyes. His absolute fearlessness satisfied the animal, for he gave a wag of the tail, grinned, and wrinkled up his snout, and curled himself complacently against Bertrand’s legs.

“He scents a true Breton,” said Du Guesclin, with a laugh. “Any news on the road, friend?”

The old man was studying Bertrand.

“Well, lording, the broom flower is in bloom, and little Kate, the ermine, is skipping and chuckling over the fight at Mivoie.”

Bertrand never flinched, but looked the peasant straight in the face.

“That is old news to me, friend,” he said.

The man grinned, and nodded his head mysteriously, with quaint sententiousness.

“Maybe, lording, you have not heard that the devil is loose again.”

“There are many devils in Brittany, father; we are possessed like the pigs in the Bible.”

“Eh, yes, but none so bad as Croquart. He has broken out of Josselin, they tell me, and is at Pontivy, with his free lances, swearing blood and burnings for Bamborough’s death.”

Bertrand straightened up, and took the news for its solid worth.

“I thought the Sieur de Beaumanoir had the fellow safe for a while,” he said.

“Ah, no doubt, lording, but Croquart is at Pontivy, and mad as an old wolf dam that has lost her cubs.”

The sun was well up when Bertrand took leave of the peasant folk, and, learning the way from them, mounted his horse and rode off into the woods. He had given the girl Marie a kiss before going, feeling grateful to her, even though she had seen him weep. New courage stirred in his heart, and his eyes were keen as he rode under the great trees, thinking of what the old man had told him concerning Croquart. A curious smile hovered about his mouth. Presently he dismounted, tethered his horse, knelt down on the grass, and prayed.

When he had ended his praying he took his shield upon his knees, and, drawing his poniard, began to batter at it with the hilt. The blows rang out through the silence of the woods till the eagle of the Du Guesclins was beaten from the shield.