“But yesterday came a letter of her sending to the King,” he went on, “but never of her writing, for they say that she knows not ‘A’ from ‘B,’ if she meets them in her voyaging.  Now, nothing would serve my wilful daughter Elliot (she being possessed, as I said, with love for this female mystery), but that we must ride forth and be the first to meet the Maid on her way, and offer her shelter at my poor house, if she does but seem honest, though methinks a hostelry is good enough for one that has ridden so far, with men for all her company.  And I, being but a subject of my daughter’s, as I said, and this a Saint’s Day, when a man may rest from his paints and brushes, I even let saddle the steeds, and came forth to see what ferlies Heaven would send us.”

“Oh, a lucky day for me, fair sir,” I answered him, marvelling to hear him speak of paint and brushes, and even as I spoke a thought came into my mind.  “If you will listen to me, sir,” I said, “and if the gentle maid, your daughter, will pardon me for staying you so long from the road, I will tell you that, to my thinking, you have come over late, for that yesterday the Maiden you speak of rode, after nightfall, into Chinon.”

Now the girl turned round on me, and, in faith, I asked no more than to see her face, kind or angry.  “You tell us, sir, that you never heard speak of the Maid till this hour, and now you say that you know of her comings and goings.  Unriddle your riddle, sir, if it pleases you, and say how you saw and knew one that you never heard speech of.”

She was still very wroth, and I knew not whether I might not anger her yet more, so I louted lowly, cap in hand, and said—­

“It is but a guess that comes into my mind, and I pray you be not angry with me, who am ready and willing to believe in this Maid, or in any that will help France, for, if I be not wrong, last night her coming saved my life, and that of her own company.”

“How may that be, if thieves robbed and bound you?”

“I told you not all my tale,” I said, “for, indeed, few would have believed the thing that had not seen it.  But, upon my faith as a gentleman, and by the arm-bone of the holy Apostle Andrew, which these sinful eyes have seen, in the church of the Apostle in his own town, somewhat holy passed this way last night; and if this Maid be indeed sent from heaven, that holy thing was she, and none other.”

“Nom Dieu! saints are not common wayfarers on our roads at night.  There is no ‘wale’ of saints in this country,” said the father of Elliot; “and as this Pucelle of Lorraine must needs pass by us here, if she is still on the way, even tell us all your tale.”

With that I told them how the “brigands” (for so they now began to call such reivers as Brother Thomas) were, to my shame, and maugre my head, for a time of my own company.  And I told them of the bushment that they laid to trap travellers, and how I had striven to give a warning, and how they bound me and gagged me, and of the strange girl’s voice that spoke through the night of “mes Freres de Paradis,” and of that golden “boyn” faring in the dark, that I thought I saw, and of the words spoken by the blind man and the soldier, concerning some vision which affrayed them, I know not what.