第79章 HOW NORMAN LESLIE FARED IN PARIS TOWN(5)

"Norman Leslie of Pitcullo leaves his malison on the English."Next I bound the jackanapes within the bosom of my doublet,with a piece of the cord whereto the rope had been knotted,for I could not leave the little beast to die the death of a traitor,and bring suspicion,moreover,on the poor violer woman.Then,commanding myself to the Saints,and especially thanking Madame St.Catherine,I began to climb,hauling myself up by the rope,whereon I had made knots to this end;nor was the climbing more difficult than to scale a branchless beech trunk for a bird's nest,which,like other boys,I had often done.So behold me,at last,with my legs hanging in free air,seated on the sill of the casement.Happily,of the three iron stanchions,though together they bore my weight,one was loose in the lower socket,for lack of lead,and this one I displaced easily enough,and so passed through.Then I put the wooden bar at the rope's end,within the room,behind the two other stanchions,considering that they,by themselves,would bear my weight,but if not,rather choosing to trust my soul to the Saints than my body to the English.

The deep below me was very terrible to look upon,and the casement being above the dry ditch,I had no water to break my fall,if fall I must.Howbeit,I hardened my heart,and turning my face to the wall,holding first the wooden bar,and then shifting my grasp to the rope,I let myself down,clinging to the rope with my legs,and at first not a little helped by the knots I had made to climb to the casement.When I had passed these,methought my hands were on fire;nevertheless,I slid down slowly and with caution,till my feet touched ground.

I was now in the dry ditch,above my head creaked and swung the dead body of the hanged marauder,but he did no whit affray me.I ran,stooping,along the bed of the dry ditch,for many yards,stumbling over the bodies of men slain in yesterday's fight,and then,creeping out,I found a hollow way between two slopes,and thence crawled into a wood,where I lay some little space hidden by the boughs.The smell of trees and grass and the keen air were like wine to me;I cooled my bleeding hands in the deep dew;and presently,in the dawn,I was stealing towards St.Denis,taking such cover of ditches and hedges as we had sought in our unhappy march of yesterday.And I so sped,by favour of the Saints,that Ifell in with no marauders;but reaching the windmill right early,at first trumpet-call,I was hailed by our sentinels for the only man that had won in and out of Paris,and had carried off,moreover,a prisoner,the jackanapes.To see me,scarred,with manacles on my wrists and gyves on my ankles,weaponless,with an ape on my shoulder,was such a sight as the Scots Guard had never beheld before,and carrying me to the smith's,they first knocked off my irons,and gave me wine,ere they either asked me for my tale,or told me their own,which was a heartbreak to bear.

For no man could unfold the manner of that which had come to pass,if,at least,there were not strong treason at the root of all.For our part of the onfall,the English had made but a feigned attack on the mill,wherefore the bale-fires were lit,to our undoing.This was the ruse de guerre of the accursed cordelier,Brother Thomas.

For the rest,the Maid had led on a band to attack the gate St.

Honore,with Gaucourt in her company,a knight that had no great love either of her or of a desperate onslaught.But D'Alencon,whom she loved as a brother,was commanded to take another band,and wait behind a butte or knowe,out of danger of arrow-shot.The Maid had stormed all day at her gate,had taken the boulevard without,and burst open and burned the outer port,and crossed the dry ditch.

But when she had led up her men,now few,over the slope and to the edge of the wet fosse,behold no faggots and bundles of wood were brought up,whereby,as is manner of war,to fill up the fosse,and so cross over.As she then stood under the wall,shouting for faggots and scaling-ladders,her standard-bearer was shot to death,and she was sorely wounded by an arbalest bolt.Natheless she lay by the wall,still crying on her men,but nought was ready that should have been,many were slain by shafts and cannon-shot,and in the dusk,she weeping and crying still that the place was theirs to take,D'Alencon carried her off by main force,set her on her horse,and so brought her back to St.Denis.

Now,my mind was,and is to this day,that there was treason here,and a black stain on the chivalry of France,to let a girl go so far,and not to follow her.But of us Scots many were slain,and more wounded,while Robin Lindsay died in Paris gate,and Randal Rutherford lay a prisoner in English hands.