A Heroine of France | Page 2

the autumn woodlands was about us, when the songs of the
birds are hushed, and the light falls golden through the yellowing
leaves, and a glory more solemn than that of springtide lies upon the
land.
Methinks there is something in the gradual death of the year which
attunes our hearts to a certain gentle melancholy; and perchance this
was why Sir Guy's words had lacked the ring of hopeful bravery that
was natural to one of his temperament, and why Bertrand's eyes were
so grave and dreamy, and his voice seemed to come from far away.
"And yet I do bethink me that six months agone I did behold a scene
which seems to me to hold within its scope something of miracle and of
mystery. I have thought of it by day, and dreamed of it by night, and
the memory of it will not leave me, I trow, so long as breath and being
remain!"
We turned and looked at him--the pair of us--with eyes which
questioned better than our tongues. Bertrand and I had been comrades
and friends in boyhood; but of late years we had been much sundered. I

had not seen him for above a year, till he joined us the previous
Wednesday at Nancy, having received a letter I did send to him from
thence. He came to beg of me to visit him at his kinsman's house, the
Seigneur Robert de Baudricourt of Vaucouleurs; and since my thirst for
travel was assuaged, and my purse something over light to go to Court,
I was glad to end my wanderings for the nonce, in the company of one
whom I still loved as a brother.
From the first I had noted that Bertrand was something graver and more
thoughtful than had been his wont. Now I did look at him with wonder
in my eyes. What could he be speaking of?
He answered as though the question had passed my lips.
"It was May of this present year of grace," he said, "I mind it the better
that it was the Feast of the Ascension, and I had kept fast and vigil, had
made my confession and received the Holy Sacrament early in the day.
I was in my lodging overlooking the market place, and hard by the
Castle which as you know hangs, as it were, over the town, guarding or
threatening it, as the case may be, when a messenger arrived from my
kinsman, De Baudricourt, bidding me to a council which he was
holding at noon that day. I went to him without delay; and he did tell
me a strange tale.
"Not long since, so he said, an honest prud'homme of the neighbouring
village of Burey le Petit, Durand Laxart by name, had asked speech
with him, and had then told him that a young niece of his, dwelling in
the village of Domremy, had come to him a few days since, saying it
had been revealed to her how that she was to be used by the God of
Heaven as an instrument in His hands for the redemption of France;
and she had been told in a vision to go first to the Seigneur de
Baudricourt, who would then find means whereby she should be sent to
the Dauphin (as she called him), whom she was to cause to be made
King of France."
"Mort de Dieu!" cried Sir Guy, as he gazed at Bertrand with a look
betwixt laughter and amaze, "and what said your worshipful uncle to
that same message?"

"At the first, he told me, he broke into a great laugh, and bid the honest
fellow box the girl's ears well, and send her back to her mother. But he
added that the man had been to him once again, and had pleaded that at
least he would see his niece before sending her away; and since by this
time he was himself somewhat curious to see and to question this
village maiden, who came with so strange a tale, he had told Laxart to
bring her at noon that very day, and he desired that I and certain others
should be there in the hall with him, to hear her story, and perhaps
suggest some shrewd question which might help to test her good faith."
"A good thought," spoke Sir Guy, "for it is hard to believe in these
dreamers of dreams. I have met such myself--they talk great swelling
words, but the world wags on its way in spite of them. They are no
prophets; they are bags of wind. They make a stir and a commotion for
a brief while, and then they vanish to be heard of no more."
"It may be so," answered Bertrand, whose face was grave, and whose
steadfast