y visor down, clad in armour, as
I was when I rode forth of Hennebon while the French were busied with
the assault on the further side of the town,--forth I came with my three
hundred horse, and we fired the enemy's camp--ah, but we made a goodly
blaze that day! I reckon the villages saw it for ten miles around or
more."

"But your Grace remembereth, we won not back into the town at after,"
quietly suggested Perrote.

"Well, what so? Went we not to Brest, and there gathered six hundred
men, and when we appeared again before Hennebon, the trumpets sounded,
and the gates were flung open, and we entered in triumph? Thy memory
waxeth weak, old woman! I must refresh it from mine own."

"Please it, your good Grace, I am nigh ten years younger than yourself."

"Then shouldest thou be the more 'shamed to have so much worser a
memory. Why, hast forgot all those weeks at Hennebon, that we awaited
the coming of the English fleet? Dost not remember how I went down to
the Council with thyself at mine heels, and the child in mine arms, to
pray the captains not to yield up the town to the French, and the lither
loons would not hear me a word? And then at the last minute, when the
gates were opened, and the French marching up to take possession,
mindest thou not how I ran to yon window that giveth toward the sea, and
there at last, at last! the English fleet was seen, making straight sail
for us. Then flung I open the contrary casement toward the street, and
myself shouted to the people to shut the gates, and man the ramparts,
and cry, `No surrender!' Ah, it was a day, that! Had there been but
time, I'd never have shouted--I'd have been down myself, and slammed
that gate on the King of France's nose! The pity of it that I had no
wings! And did I not meet the English Lords and kiss them every one
[Note 1], and hang their chambers with the richest arras in my coffers?
And the very next day, Sir Walter Mauny made a sally, and destroyed the
French battering-ram, and away fled the French King with ours in
pursuit. Ha, that was a jolly sight to see! Old Perrote, hast thou
forgot it all?"

We are accustomed in the present day to speak of the deliverer of
Hennebon as Sir Walter Manny. That his name ought really to be spelt
and sounded Mauny, is evidenced by a contemporary entry which speaks of
his daughter as the Lady of Maweny.

Old Perrote had listened quietly, while her mistress poured forth these
reminiscences in rapi