In the Days of Chivalry

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In the Days of Chivalry

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Title: In the Days of Chivalry
Author: Evelyn Everett-Green
Release Date: August 15, 2004 [EBook #13183]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE
DAYS OF CHIVALRY ***

Produced by Martin Robb

In the Days of Chivalry
A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince

by Evelyn Everett-Green.
CHAPTER I.
THE TWIN EAGLETS.
Autumn was upon the world -- the warm and gorgeous autumn of the
south -- autumn that turned the leaves upon the trees to every hue of
russet, scarlet, and gold, that transformed the dark solemn aisles of the
trackless forests of Gascony into what might well have been palaces of
fairy beauty, and covered the ground with a thick and soundless carpet
of almost every hue of the rainbow.
The sun still retained much of its heat and power, and came slanting in
between the huge trunks of the forest trees in broad shafts of quivering
light. Overhead the soft wind from the west made a ceaseless, dreamy
music and here and there the solemn silence of the forest was broken by
the sweet note of some singing bird or the harsh croak of the raven. At
night the savage cry of the wolf too often disturbed the rest of the
scattered dwellers in that vast forest, and made a belated traveller look
well to the sharpness of his weapons and the temper of his bowstring;
but by day and in the sunlight the forest was beautiful and quiet enough
-- something too quiet, perhaps, for the taste of the two handsome lads
who were pacing the dim aisles together, their arms entwined and their
curly heads in close proximity as they walked and talked.
The two lads were of exactly the same height, and bore a strong
likeness one to the other. Their features were almost identical, but the
colouring was different, so that no one who saw them in a good light
would be likely to mistake or confuse them. Both had the oval face and
delicate regular features which we English sometimes call
"foreign-looking;" but then again they both possessed the broad
shoulders, the noble height, the erect carriage, and frank, fearless
bearing which has in it something distinctively English, and which had
distinguished these lads from their infancy from the children of the
country of their adoption. Then, though Raymond had the dark, liquid
eyes of the south, Gaston's were as blue as the summer skies; and again,

whilst Gaston's cheek was of a swarthy hue, Raymond's was as fair as
that of an English maiden; and both had some golden gleams in their
curly brown hair --- hair that clustered round their heads in a thick,
waving mass, and gave a leonine look to the bold, eager faces. "The
lion cubs" had been one of the many nicknames given to the brothers
by the people round, who loved them, yet felt that they would not
always keep them in their quiet forest. "The twin eaglets" was another
such name; and truly there was something of the keen wildness of the
eagle's eye in the flashing blue eyes of Gaston. The eager, delicate
features and the slightly aquiline noses of the pair added, perhaps, to
this resemblance; and there had been many whispers of late to the
effect that the eaglets would not remain long in the nest now, but would
spread their wings for a wider flight.
Born and bred though they had been at the mill in the great forest that
covered almost the whole of the district of Sauveterre, they were no
true children of the mill. What had scions of the great house of the De
Brocas to do with a humble miller of Gascony? The boys were true
sons of their house -- grafts of the parent stock. The Gascon peasants
looked at them with pride, and murmured that the day would come
when they would show the world the mettle of which they were made.
Those were stirring times for Gascony -- when Gascony was a fief of
the English Crown, sorely coveted by the French monarch, but
tenaciously held on to by the "Roy Outremer," as the great Edward was
called; the King who, as was rumoured, was claiming as his own the
whole realm of France. And Gascony, it must be remembered, did