And so he went on and on, telling the brave things
he would say and the wonders he would do; and the
others put in a word from time to time, describing
over again the gory marvels they would do if ever that
madman ventured to cross their path again, for next
time they would be ready for him, and would soon teach
him that if he thought he could surprise them twice
because he had surprised them once, he would find himself
very seriously mistaken, that’s all.
And so, in the end, they all got back their self-respect;
yes, and even added somewhat to it; indeed when the
sitting broke up they had a finer opinion of themselves
than they had ever had before.
They were peaceful and pleasant, those young
and smoothly flowing days of ours; that is, that was
the case as a rule, we being remote from the seat
of war; but at intervals roving bands approached near
enough for us to see the flush in the sky at night
which marked where they were burning some farmstead
or village, and we all knew, or at least felt, that
some day they would come yet nearer, and we should
have our turn. This dull dread lay upon our spirits
like a physical weight. It was greatly augmented
a couple of years after the Treaty of Troyes.
It was truly a dismal year for France. One day
we had been over to have one of our occasional pitched
battles with those hated Burgundian boys of the village
of Maxey, and had been whipped, and were arriving on
our side of the river after dark, bruised and weary,
when we heard the bell ringing the tocsin. We
ran all the way, and when we got to the square we
found it crowded with the excited villagers, and weirdly
lighted by smoking and flaring torches.
On the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian
priest, who was telling the people new which made
them weep, and rave, and rage, and curse, by turns.
He said our old mad King was dead, and that now we
and France and the crown were the property of an English
baby lying in his cradle in London. And he urged
us to give that child our allegiance, and be its faithful
servants and well-wishers; and said we should now have
a strong and stable government at last, and that in
a little time the English armies would start on their
last march, and it would be a brief one, for all that
it would need to do would be to conquer what odds and
ends of our country yet remained under that rare and
almost forgotten rag, the banner of France.
The people stormed and raged at him, and you could
see dozens of them stretch their fists above the sea
of torch-lighted faces and shake them at him; and
it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at;
and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for
he stood there in the strong glare and looked down
on those angry people in the blandest and most indifferent
way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake,
