For this Barthelemy made much sorrow, not only that so good a knight was slain, but that he had lost a great ransom, whereby he should have been a rich man.  Yet such is the fortune of war!  Which that day was strangely seen; for a knight having yielded to me because his horse threw him, and he lost for a moment all sense with the fall and found my boot on his neck when he came to himself, who should he be but Messire Robert Heron, the same whom I took at Orleans!

Who, when he knew me, took off his salade for greater ease, and, sitting down on a rock by the way, swore as never I heard man swear, French, English, Spaniard, or Scot; and at length laughed, and said it was fortune of war, and so was content.  This skirmish being thus ended, we returned, blithe and rich men every one of us, what with prisoners, horses, arms, and all manner of treasure taken with the baggage.  That night we slept little in Guermigny, but feasted and drank deep.  For my own part, I know not well where I did sleep, or how I won to what bed, which shames me some deal after all these years.

On the morrow we left Guermigny to the garrison of the place for their ill-fortune, and rode back towards Compiegne.

And this was the sport that the Burgundians had in hare-hunting.

This Battle of the Hares was the merriest passage of arms for our party, and bourdes were made on it, and songs sung, as by the English on that other Battle of the Herrings.  Now, moreover, I might be called rich, what with ransoms, what with my share of the plunder in horses, rings, chains of gold, jewels, silver dishes, and rich cloths, out of the baggage of the enemy.  Verily lack of wealth could no more sunder Elliot and me!  For Pothon was as open of hand as he was high of heart, and was no greedy captain, wherefore men followed him the more gladly.

CHAPTER XXIX—­SHOWETH HOW VERY NOBLE WAS THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY

All this was well, but we were no nearer Rouen, and the freeing of the Maid, on this twentieth of November, than we had been when the siege of Compiegne broke up, on the twenty-sixth of October.

The Duke of Burgundy, we learned, was like a man mad when he heard of the Battle of the Hares.  Nothing would serve him that day but to lead all his host to Guermigny from Peronne, whence he would have got little comfort of vengeance, for we were in a place of safety.  But Jean de Luxembourg told him that he must not venture his nobility among routiers like us, wherein he pleased the Duke, but spoke foolishly.  For no man, be he duke or prince, can be of better blood than we of the House of Rothes, not to speak of Xaintrailles and many other gentlemen of our company.

The Duke, then, put not his noble person in any jeopardy, but, more wisely, he sent messengers after my Lord of Huntingdon that he should bring up the English to aid the Burgundian hare-hunters.  But Huntingdon had departed to Rouen, where then lay Henry, King of England, a boy on whom and on whose House God has avenged the Maid with terrible judgments, and will yet the more avenge her, blessed be His name!