A Monk of Fife | Page 7

masters learn you,"
said my enemy.
And therewith they carried me on board the vessel, the "St. Margaret,"
of Berwick, laden with a cargo of dried salmon from Eden- mouth.
They meant me no kindness, for there was an old feud between the
scholars and the sailors; but it seemed to me, in my foolishness, that
now I was in luck's way. I need not go back, with blood on my hands,
to Pitcullo and my father. I had money in my pouch, my mother's gold
chain about my neck, a ship's deck under my foot, and the seas before
me. It was not hard for me to bargain with the shipmaster for a passage
to Berwick, whence I might put myself aboard a vessel that traded to
Bordeaux for wine from that country. The sailors I made my friends at
no great cost, for indeed they were the conquerors, and could afford to

show clemency, and hold me to slight ransom as a prisoner of war.
So we lifted anchor, and sailed out of Eden-mouth, none of those on
shore knowing how I was aboard the carrick that slipped by the
bishop's castle, and so under the great towers of the minster and St.
Rule's, forth to the Northern Sea. Despite my broken head-- which put
it comfortably into my mind that maybe Dickon's was no worse--I
could have laughed to think how clean I had vanished away from St.
Andrews, as if the fairies had taken me. Now having time to reason of
it quietly, I picked up hope for Dickon's life, remembering his head to
be of the thickest. Then came into my mind the many romances of
chivalry which I had read, wherein the young squire has to flee his
country for a chance blow, as did Messire Patroclus, in the Romance of
Troy, who slew a man in anger over the game of the chess, and many
another knight, in the tales of Charlemagne and his paladins. For ever it
is thus the story opens, and my story, methought, was beginning to-day
like the rest.
Now, not to prove more wearisome than need be, and so vex those who
read this chronicle with much talk about myself, and such accidents of
travel as beset all voyagers, and chiefly in time of war, I found a
trading ship at Berwick, and reached Bordeaux safe, after much
sickness on the sea. And in Bordeaux, with a very sore heart, I changed
the links of my mother's chain that were left to me--all but four, that
still I keep--for money of that country; and so, with a lighter pack than
spirit, I set forth towards Orleans and to my brother Robin.
On this journey I had good cause to bless Father Peter of the Abbey for
his teaching me the French tongue, that was of more service to me than
all my Latin. Yet my Latin, too, the little I knew, stood me in good
stead at the monasteries, where often I found bed and board, and no
small kindness; I little deeming that, in time to come, I also should be
in religion, an old man and weary, glad to speak with travellers
concerning the news of the world, from which I am now these ten years
retired. Yet I love even better to call back memories of these days,
when I took my part in the fray. If this be a sin, may God and the Saints
forgive me, for if I have fought, it was in a rightful cause, which
Heaven at last has prospered, and in no private quarrel. And methinks I
have one among the Saints to pray for me, as a friend for a friend not
unfaithful. But on this matter I submit me to the judgment of the

Church, as in all questions of the faith.

CHAPTER II
--HOW NORMAN LESLIE MET NOIROUFLE THE CORDELIER,
CALLED BROTHER THOMAS IN RELIGION: AND OF
MIRACLES WROUGHT BY BROTHER THOMAS

The ways were rude and long from Bordeaux town to Orleans, whither
I had set my face, not knowing, when I left my own country, that the
city was beleaguered by the English. For who could guess that lords
and knights of the Christian faith, holding captive the gentle Duke of
Orleans, would besiege his own city?--a thing unheard of among the
very Saracens, and a deed that God punished. Yet the news of this great
villainy, namely, the leaguer of Orleans, then newly begun, reached my
ears on my landing at Bordeaux, and made me greatly fear that I might
never meet my brother Robin alive. And this my doubt proved but too
true, for he soon after this time fell, with many other Scottish
gentlemen and archers, deserted shamefully by the French