A Monk of Fife | Page 8

and by
Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Clermont, at the Battle of the Herrings.
But of this I knew nothing--as, indeed, the battle was not yet
fought--and only pushed on for France, thinking to take service with
the Dauphin against the English. My journey was through a country
ruinous enough, for, though the English were on the further bank of the
Loire, the partisans of the Dauphin had made a ruin round themselves
and their holds, and, not being paid, they lived upon the country.
The further north I held, by ways broken and ruined with rains and suns,
the more bare and rugged grew the whole land. Once, stopping hard by
a hamlet, I had sat down to munch such food as I carried, and was
sharing my meal with a little brown herd-boy, who told me that he was
dinnerless. A few sheep and lean kine plucked at such scant grasses as
grew among rocks, and herbs useless but sweet- scented, when
suddenly a horn was blown from the tower of the little church. The first
note of that blast had not died away, when every cow and sheep was
scampering towards the hamlet and a kind of "barmkyn" {4} they had
builded there for protection, and the boy after them, running with his
bare legs for dear life. For me, I was too amazed to run in time, so lay

skulking in the thick sweet- smelling herbs, whence I saw certain
men-at-arms gallop to the crest of a cliff hard by, and ride on with
curses, for they were not of strength to take the barmkyn.
Such was the face of France in many counties. The fields lay weedy
and untilled; the starving peasant-folk took to the highway, every man
preying on his neighbour. Woods had grown up, and broken in upon
the roads. Howbeit, though robbers harboured therein, none of them
held to ransom a wandering poor Scots scholar.
Slowly I trudged, being often delayed, and I was now nearing Poictiers,
and thought myself well on my road to Chinon, where, as I heard, the
Dauphin lay, when I came to a place where the road should have
crossed a stream--not wide, but strong, smooth, and very deep. The
stream ran through a glen; and above the road I had long noted the
towers of a castle. But as I drew closer, I saw first that the walls were
black with fire and roofless, and that carrion birds were hovering over
them, some enemy having fallen upon the place: and next, behold, the
bridge was broken, and there was neither ford nor ferry! All the ruin
was fresh, the castle still smouldering, the kites flocking and yelling
above the trees, the planks of the bridge showing that the destruction
was but of yesterday.
This matter of the broken bridge cost me little thought, for I could
swim like an otter. But there was another traveller down by the stream
who seemed more nearly concerned. When I came close to him, I found
him standing up to his waist in the water, taking soundings with a long
and heavy staff. His cordelier's frock was tucked up into his belt, his
long brown legs, with black hairs thick on them, were naked. He was a
huge, dark man, and when he turned and stared at me, I thought that,
among all men of the Church and in religion whom I had ever beheld,
he was the foulest and most fierce to look upon. He had an ugly,
murderous visage, fell eyes and keen, and a right long nose, hooked
like a falcon's. The eyes in his head shone like swords, and of all eyes
of man I ever saw, his were the most piercing and most terrible. On his
back he carried, as I noticed at the first, what I never saw on a
cordelier's back before, or on any but his since--an arbalest, and he had
bolts enough in his bag, the feathers showing above.
"Pax vobiscum," he cried, in a loud, grating voice, as he saw me, and
scrambled out to shore.

"Et cum anima tua," I answered.
"Nom de Dieu!" he said, "you have bottomed my Latin already, that is
scarce so deep as the river here. My malison on them that broke the
bridge!" Then he looked me over fiercely.
"Burgundy or Armagnac?" he asked.
I thought the question strange, as a traveller would scarce care to
pronounce for Burgundy in that country. But this was a man who
would dare anything, so I deemed it better to answer that I was a Scot,
and, so far, of neither party.
"Tug-mutton, wine-sack!" he said, these being two of many ill names
which the French gave our countrymen; for, of all men, the French are
least grateful