A Monk of Fife

A >> Andrew Lang >> A Monk of Fife


The cure, thinking that he must be half asleep and dreaming, paid no
manner of regard to these commands. Thereon the voice, twice and thrice,
spoke aloud, none save the cure being present, and said, "Go forth and
cut down the Scots man-at-arms who was hanged, for he yet lives."

It often so chances that men in religion are more hard of heart to
believe than laymen and the simple. The cure, therefore, having made all
due search, and found none living who could have uttered that voice, went
not forth himself, but at noon of Good Friday, his service being done, he
sent his sexton, as one used not to fear the sight and company of dead
men. The sexton set out, whistling for joy of the slaying of the Scot,
but when he came back he was running as fast as he might, and scarce
could speak for very fear. At the last they won from him that he had
gone to the tree where the dead Scot was hanging, and first had heard a
faint rustle of the boughs. Not affrighted, the sexton drew out a knife
and slit one of Michael's bare toes, for they had stripped him before
they hanged him. At the touch of the knife the blood came, and the foot
gave a kick, whereon the sexton hastened back with these tidings to the
cure. The holy man, therefore, sending for such clergy as he could
muster, went at their head, in all his robes canonical, to the wild wood,
where they cut Michael down and rubbed his body and poured wine into his
throat, so that, at the end of half an hour, he sat up and said, "Pay
Waiter Hay the two testers that I owe him."

Thereon most ran and hid themselves, as if from a spirit of the dead, but
the manant, he whose father Michael had hanged, made at him with a sword,
and dealt him a great blow, cutting off his ear. But others who had not
fled, and chiefly the cure, held the manant till his hands were bound,
that he might not slay one so favoured of Madame St. Catherine. Not that
they knew of Michael's vow, but it was plain to the cure that the man was
under the protection of Heaven. Michael then, being kindly nursed in a
house of a certain Abbess, was wellnigh recovered, and his vow wholly
forgotten, when lo! he being alone, one invisible smote his cheek, so
that the room rang with the buffet, and a voice said to him, "Wilt thou
never remember thy pilgrimage?" Moved, therefore, to repentance, he
stole the cure's horse, and so, journeying by night till he reached
France, he accomplished his vows, and was now returned to Chinon. This
Michael Hamilton was hanged, not very long afterwards, by command of the
Duc d'Alencon, for plundering a church at Jargeau.

The story I have thought it behoved me to tell in this place, because it
shows how good and mild is Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois, also lest
memory of it be lost in Scotland, where it cannot but be of great comfort
to all gentlemen of Michael's kin and of the name and house of Hamilton.
Again, I tell it because I heard it at this very season of my waiting to
be recovered of my wound. Moreover, it is a tale of much edification to
men-at-arms, as proving how ready are the saints to befriend us, even by
speaking as it were with human voices to sinful men. Of this I myself,
later, had good proof, as shall be told, wherefore I praise and thank the
glorious virgin, Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois.

This tale was the common talk in Chinon, which I heard very gladly,
taking pleasure in the strangeness of it. And in the good fortune of the
Maid I was yet more joyful, both for her own sake and for Elliot's, to
whom she was so dear. But, for my own part, the leeches gave me little
comfort, saying that I might in no manner set forth with the rest, for
that I could not endure to march on foot, but must die by the way.

Poor comfort was this for me, who must linger in garrison while the
fortune of France was on the cast of the dice, and my own fortune was to
be made now or never. So it chanced that one day I was loitering in the
gateway, watching the soldiers, who were burnishing armour, sharpening
swords, and all as merry and busy as bees in spring. Then to me comes my
master, with a glad countenance, and glad was I, for these eight days or
nine I had no tidings of him, and knew not if Elliot had returned from
pilgrimage. I rose to greet him, and he took my hand, bidding me be of
good cheer, for that he had good tidings. But what his news might be he
would not tell me; I must come with him, he said, to his house.

All about his door there was much concourse of people, and among them two
archers led a great black charger, fairly caparisoned, and covered with a
rich silk hucque of colour cramoisie, adorned with lilies of silver. As
I marvelled who the rider might be, conceiving that he was some great
lord, the door of my master's house opened, and there, within, and plain
to view, was Elliot embracing a young knight; and over his silver armour
fell her yellow hair, covering gorget and rere-brace. Then my heart
stood still, my lips opened but gave no cry, when, lo! the knight kissed
her and came forth, all in shining armour, but unhelmeted. Then I saw
that this was no knight, but the Maid herself, boden in effeir of war,
{23} and so changed from what she had been that she seemed a thing
divine. If St. Michael had stepped down from a church window, leaving
the dragon slain, he would have looked no otherwise than she, all
gleaming with steel, and with grey eyes full of promise of victory: the
holy sword girdled about her, and a little battle-axe hanging from her
saddle-girth. She sprang on her steed, from the mounting-stone beside
the door, and so, waving her hand, she cried farewell to Elliot, that
stood gazing after her with shining eyes. The people went after the Maid
some way, shouting Noel! and striving to kiss her stirrup, the archers
laughing, meanwhile, and bidding them yield way. And so we came, humbly
enough, into the house, where, her father being present and laughing and
the door shut, Elliot threw her arms about me and wept and smiled on my
breast.

"Ah, now I must lose you again," she said; whereat I was half glad that
she prized me so; half sorry, for that I knew I might not go forth with
the host. This ill news I gave them both, we now sitting quietly in the
great chamber.

"Nay, thou shalt go," said Elliot. "Is it not so, father? For the Maid
gave her promise ere she went to Poictiers, and now she is fulfilling it.
For the gentle King has given her a household--pages, and a maitre
d'hotel, a good esquire, and these two gentlemen who rode with her from
Vaucouleurs, and an almoner, Brother Jean Pasquerel, an Augustine, that
the Maid's mother sent with us from Puy, for we found her there. And the
Maid has appointed you to go with her, for that you took her part when
men reviled her. And money she has craved from the King; and Messire
Aymar de Puiseux, that was your adversary, is to give you a good horse,
for that you may not walk. And, above all, the Maid has declared to me
that she will bring you back to us unscathed of sword, but, for herself,
she shall be wounded by an arrow under Orleans, yet shall she not die,
but be healed of that wound, and shall lead the King to his sacring at
Rheims. So now, verily, for you I have no fear, but my heart is sore for
the Maid's sake, and her wound."

None the less, she made as if she would dance for joy, and I could have
done as much, not, indeed, that as then I put my faith in prophecies, but
for gladness that I was to take my fortune in the wars. So the hours
passed in great mirth and good cheer. Many things we spoke of, as
concerning the mother of the Maid--how wise she was, yet in a kind of
amazement, and not free from fear, wherefore she prayed constantly for
her child.

Moreover Elliot told me that the jackanapes was now hers of right, for
that the woman, its owner, had been at Puy, but without her man, and had
sold it to her, as to a good mistress, yet with tears at parting. This
news was none of the gladdest to me, for still I feared that tidings of
us might come to Brother Thomas. Howbeit, at last, with a light heart,
though I was leaving Elliot, I went back to the castle. There Aymar de
Puiseux, meeting me, made me the best countenance, and gave me a right
good horse, that I named Capdorat after him, by his good will. And for
my armour, which must needs be light, they gave me a maillet--a coat of
slender mail, which did not gall my old wound. So accoutred, I departed
next day, in good company, to Blois, whence the Maid was to set forth to
Orleans. Marvel it was to find the road so full of bestial--oxen, cows,
sheep, and swine--all gathered, as if to some great market, for the
victualling of Orleans. But how they were to be got through the English
lines into the city men knew not. For the English, by this time, had
girdled the city all about with great bastilles, each joined to other by
sunken ways dug in the earth, wherein were streets, and marts, and
chambers with fires and chimneys, as I have written in my Latin
chronicle. {24} There false Frenchmen came, as to a fair, selling and
buying, with store of food, wine, arms, and things of price, buying and
selling in safety, for the cannon and couleuvrines in the town could not
touch them. But a word ran through the host how the Maid knew, by
inspiration of the saints, that no man should sally forth from among the
English, but that we should all pass unharmed.

Meantime the town of Blois was in great turmoil--the cattle lowing in the
streets, the churches full to the doors of men-at-arms, waiting their
turn to be shrived, for the Maid had ordained that all who followed her
must go clean of sin. And there was great wailing of light o' loves, and
leaguer lasses that had followed the army, as is custom, for this custom
the Maid did away, and drove these women forth, and whither they wandered
I know not. Moreover, she made proclamation that all dice, and tabliers,
and instruments of gambling must be burned, and myself saw the great pile
yet smoking in the public place, for this was to be a holy war. So we
lodged at Blois, where the Maid showed me the best countenance, speaking
favourable words of Elliot and me, and bidding me keep near her banner in
battle, which I needed no telling to make me resolve to do. So there,
for that night, we rested.




CHAPTER XII--HOW THE MAID CAME TO ORLEANS, AND OF THE DOLOROUS STROKE
THAT FIRST SHE STRUCK IN WAR


Concerning the ways of the saints, and their holy counsel, it is not for
sinful men to debate, but verify their ways are not as our ways, as shall
presently be shown, in the matter of the Maid's march to Orleans.

For the town of Blois, where now we lay, is, as all men know, on the
right bank of the water of Loire, a great river, wider and deeper and
stronger by far than our Tay or Tweed, and the town of Orleans, whither
we were bound, is also on the same side, namely, the right side of the
river. Now, Orleans was beleaguered in this manner: The great stone
bridge had been guarded, on the left, or further side of the stream,
first by a boulevard, or strong keep on the land, whence by a drawbridge
men crossed to a yet stronger keep, called "Les Tourelles," builded on
the last arches of the bridge. But early in the siege the English had
taken from them of Orleans the boulevard and Les Tourelles, and an arch
of the bridge had been broken, so that in nowise might men-at-arms of the
party of France enter into Orleans by way of that bridge from the left
bank through the country called Sologne.

Yet that keep, Les Tourelles, had not been a lucky prize to our enemies
of England. For their great captain, the Lord Salisbury, had a custom to
watch them of Orleans and their artillery from a window in that tower,
and, to guard him from arrow-shots, he had a golden shield pierced with
little holes to look through, that he held before his face. One day he
came into this turret when they who worked the guns in Orleans were all
at their meat. But it so chanced that two boys, playing truant from
school, went into a niche of the wall, where was a cannon loaded and
aimed at Les Tourelles. They, seeing the gleam of the golden shield at
the window of the turret, set match to the touch-hole of the cannon, and,
as Heaven would have it, the ball struck a splinter of stone from the
side of the window, which, breaking through the golden shield, slew my
Lord of Salisbury, a good knight. Thus plainly that tower was to be of
little comfort to the English.

None the less, as they held Les Tourelles and the outer landward
boulevard thereof, the English built but few works on the left side of
the river, namely, Champ St. Prive, that guarded the road by the left
bank from Blois; Les Augustins, that was a little inland from the
boulevard of Les Tourelles, so that no enemy might pass between these two
holds; and St. Jean le Blanc, that was higher up the river, and a hold of
no great strength. On the Orleans side, to guard the road from Burgundy,
the English had but one fort, St. Loup, for Burgundy and the north were
of their part, and by this way they expected no enemy. But all about
Orleans, on the right bank of the river, to keep the path from Blois on
that hand, the English had builded many great bastilles, and had joined
them by hollow ways, wherein, as I said, they lived at ease, as men in a
secure city underground. And the skill of it was to stop convoys of
food, and starve them of Orleans, for to take the town by open force the
English might in nowise avail, they being but some four thousand men-at-
arms.

Thus Matters stood, and it was the Maid's mind to march her men and all
the cattle clean through and past the English bastilles on the right side
of the river, and by inspiration she well knew that no man would come
forth against us. Moreover, she saw not how, by the other way, and the
left bank, the cattle might be ferried across, and the great company of
men-at-arms, into Orleans town, under the artillery of the English. For
the English held the pass of the broken bridge, as I said, and therefore
all crossing of the water must be by boat.

Now, herein it was shown, as often again, that the ways of the saints are
not as our ways. For the captains, namely, the Sieur de Rais (who
afterwards came to the worst end a man might), and La Hire, and Ambroise
de Lore, and De Gaucourt, in concert with the Bastard of Orleans, then
commanding for the King in that town, gave the simple Maid to understand
that Orleans was on the left bank of the river. This they did, because
they were faithless and slow of belief, and feared that so great a
company as ours might in nowise pass Meun and Beaugency, towns of the
English, and convey so many cattle through the bastilles on the right
bank. Therefore, with many priests going before, singing the Veni
Creator, with holy banners as on a pilgrimage; with men-at-arms, archers,
pages, and trains of carts; and with bullocks rowting beneath the goad,
and swine that are very hard to drive, and slow-footed sheep, we all
crossed the bridge of Blois on the morning of April 25th.

Now, had the holy saints deemed it wise and for our good to act as men
do, verily they would have spoken to the Maid, telling her that we were
all going clean contrary to her counsel. Nevertheless, the saints held
their peace, and let us march on. Belike they designed that this should
turn to the greater glory of the Maid and to the confusion of them that
disbelieved, which presently befell, as I shall relate.

All one day of spring we rode, and slept beneath the stars, the Maid
lying in her armour, so that as one later told me who knew, namely,
Elliot, her body was sorely bruised with her harness. Early in the
morning we mounted again, and so rode north, fetching a compass inland;
after noontide we came to a height, and lo! beneath us lay the English
bastilles and holds on the left bank, and, beyond the glittering river
and the broken bridge, the towers and walls of Orleans. Then I saw the
Maid in anger, for well she knew that she had been deceived by them who
should have guided her. Between us and the town of Orleans lay the wide
river, the broken bridge, and the camps of the English. On the further
shore we beheld the people swarming on the walls and quays, labouring to
launch boats with sails, and so purposing to ascend the river against the
stream and meet us two leagues beyond the English lines. But this they
might not do, for a strong wind was blowing down stream, and all their
vessels were in disarray.

The Maid spurred to the front, where were De Rais, Lore, Kennedy, and La
Hire. We could see her pointing with her staff, and hear speech high and
angry, but the words we could not hear. The captains looked downcast, as
children caught in a fault, and well they might, for we were now as far
off victualling Orleans as ever we had been. The Maid pointed to the
English keep at St. Jean le Blanc, on our side of the water, and, as it
seems, was fain to attack it; but the English had drawn off their men to
the stronger places on the bridge, and to hold St. Jean le Blanc against
them, if we took it, we had no strength. So we even wended, from the
height of Olivet, for six long miles, till we reached the stream opposite
Checy, where was an island. A rowing-boat, with a knight in glittering
arms, was pulled across the stream, and the Maid, in her eagerness,
spurred her steed deep into the water to meet him. He was a young man,
brown of visage, hardy and fierce, and on his shield bore the lilies of
Orleans, crossed with a baton sinister. He bowed low to the Maid, who
cried--

"Are you the Bastard of Orleans?"

"I am," he said, "and right glad of your coming."

"Was it you who gave counsel that I should come by this bank, and not by
the other side, and so straight against Talbot and the English?"

She spoke as a master to a faulty groom, fierce and high, and to hear her
was marvel.

"I, and wiser men than I, gave that counsel," said he, "deeming this
course the surer."

"Nom Dieu!" she cried. "The council of Messire is safer and wiser than
yours." She pointed to the rude stream, running rough and strong, a
great gale following with it, so that no sailing-boats might come from
the town. "You thought to beguile me, and are yourselves beguiled, for I
bring you better succour than ever came to knight or town--the help of
the King of Heaven."

Then, even as she spoke, and as by miracle, that fierce wind went right
about, and blew straight up the stream, and the sails of the vessels
filled.

"This is the work of our Lord," said the Bastard of Orleans, crossing
himself: and the anger passed from the eyes of the Maid.

Then he and Nicole de Giresme prayed her to pass the stream with them,
and to let her host march back to Blois and so come to Orleans, crossing
by the bridge of Blois. To this she said nay, that she could not leave
her men out of her sight, lest they fell to sin again, and all her pains
were lost. But, with many prayers, her confessor Pasquerel joining in
them, she was brought to consent. So the host, with priests and banners,
must set forth again to Blois, while the Maid, and we that were of her
company, crossed the river in boats, and so rode towards the town. On
this way (the same is a road of the old Romans) the English held a strong
fort, called St. Loup, and well might they have sallied forth against us.
But the people of Orleans, who ever bore themselves more hardily than any
townsfolk whom I have known, made an onfall against St. Loup, that the
English within might not sally out against us, where was fierce fighting,
and they took a standard from the English.

So, at nightfall, the Maid, with the Bastard and other captains at her
side, rode into the town, all the people welcoming her with torches in
hand, shouting Noel! as to a king, throwing flowers before her horse's
feet, and pressing to touch her, or even the harness of her horse, which
leaped and plunged, for the fire of a torch caught the fringe of her
banner. Lightly she spurred and turned him, and lightly she caught at
the flame with her hand and quenched it, while all men marvelled at her
grace and goodly bearing.

Never saw I more joy of heart, for whereas all had feared to fall into
the hands of the English, now there was such courage in them, as if
Monseigneur St. Michael himself, or Monseigneur St Aignan, had come down
from heaven to help his good town. If they were hardy before, as indeed
they were, now plainly they were full of such might and fury that man
might not stand against them. And soon it was plain that no less fear
had fallen on the English. But the Maid, with us who followed her, was
led right through the great street of Orleans, from the Burgundy gate to
the gate Regnart, whereby the fighting was ever most fell, and there we
lodged in the house of the Treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, Jacquet
Boucher. Never was sleep sweeter to me, after the two weary marches, and
the sounds of music and revelry in the street did not hum a moment in my
ears, before I had passed into that blessed world of slumber without a
dream.

But my waking next day brought instantly the thought of my brother Robin,
concerning whom I had ever feared that he fell with the flower of
Scotland, when the Comte de Clermont deserted us so shamefully on the day
of the Battle of the Herrings. No sooner did this doubt come into my
mind, than I leaped from my bed, attired myself, and went forth to the
quarters of the Scots under Sir Christian Chambers. Little need I had to
tell my errand, for they that met me guessed who I was, because, indeed,
Robin and I favoured each other greatly in face and bodily presence.

It was even as I had deemed: my dear brother and friend and tutor of old
days had died, charging back upon the English who pursued us, and
fighting by the side of Pothon de Xaintrailles. All that day, and in the
week which followed, my thought was ever upon him; a look in a stranger's
face, a word on another's lips, by some magic of the mind would bring my
brother almost visibly before me, ay, among the noise of swords on mail,
and the screaming of arrows, and of great cannon-balls.

If I heard ill news, it was no more than I looked for; but better news,
as it seemed, I also heard, though, in my sorrow, I marked it little. For
the soldiers were lamenting the loss of their famed gunner, not John the
Lorrainer, but one who had come to them, they said, now some weeks agone,
in the guise of a cordelier, though he did not fight in that garb, but in
common attire, and ever wore his vizor down, which men deemed strange.
Whither he had gone, or how disappeared, they knew not, for he had not
been with those who yesterday attacked St. Loup.

"He could never thole the thought of the Blessed Maid," said Allan
Rutherford, "but would tell all that listened how she was a brain-sick
wench, or a witch, and under her standard he would never fight. He even
avowed to us that she had been a chamber-wench of an inn in Neufchateau,
and there had learned to back a horse, and many a worse trick," which was
a lie devised by the English and them of Burgundy. But, go where he
would, or how he would, I deemed it well that Brother Thomas and I (for
of a surety it was Brother Thomas) were not to meet in Orleans.

Concerning the English in this wonderful adventure of the siege, I have
never comprehended, nor do I now know, wherefore they bore them as they
did. That they sallied not out on the trains which the Maid led and
brought into the town, a man might set down to mere cowardice and faint
heart--they fearing to fight against a witch, as they deemed her. In
later battles, when she had won so many a victory, they may well have
feared her. But, as now, they showed no dread where honour was to be
won, but rather pride and disdain. On this very Saturday, the morrow of
our arrival, La Hire, with Florent d'Illiers and many other knights,
pushed forth a matter of two bowshots from the city walls, and took a
keep that they thought to have burned. They were very hardy men, and
being comforted by the Maid's coming, were full of courage and goodwill;
yet the English rallied and drove them back, with much firing of guns,
and now first I heard the din of war and saw the great stone balls fly,
scattering, as they fell, into splinters that screamed in the air, with a
very terrible sound. Truly the English had the better of that fray, and
were no whit adread, for at sunset the Maid sent them two heralds,
bidding them begone; yet they answered only that they would burn her for
a witch, and called her a ribaulde, or loose wench, and bade her go back
and keep her kine.

I was with her when this message came, and her brows met and her eyes
flashed with anger. Telling us of her company to follow, she went to the
Fair Cross on the bridge, where now her image stands, fashioned in
bronze, kneeling before the Cross, with the King kneeling opposite. There
she stood and cried aloud to the English, who were in the fort on the
other side of the bridge that is called Les Tourelles, and her voice rang
across the water like a trumpet, so that it was marvel. Then came out on
to the bridge a great knight and a tall, Sir William Glasdale; no bigger
man have I seen, and I bethought me of Goliath in Holy Scripture. He
spoke in a loud, north-country voice, and, whereas she addressed him
courteously, as she did all men, he called her by the worst of names,
mocking at her for a ribaulde. She made answer that he lied, and that he
should die in four days' time or five, without stroke of sword; and so,
waving her hand haughtily, turned and went back. But I, who walked close
by her, noted that she wept like any girl at his evil and lying
accusations.