e eagerness with which he would have watched
some favourite romance suddenly done into life and action.

"Eustace! What, Eustace, in a trance?" said d'Aubricour. "Waken, and
carry this trencher of beef to your brother. Best that you should do
it," he added in a low voice, taking up a flask of wine, "and save our
comrade from at once making himself a laughing-stock."

The discontented glance with which Leonard's eyes followed his fellow
Squires, did not pass unobserved by a person with whom d'Aubricour had
exchanged a few words, a squarely-made, dark-visaged man, with a thick
black beard, and a huge scar which had obliterated one eye; his
equipment was that of a Squire, but instead of, like others of the same
degree, attending on the guests at the upper table, he sat carelessly
sideways on the bench, with one elbow on the board.

"You gaze after that trencher as if you wished your turn was come,"
said he, in a patois of English and French, which Leonard could easily
understand, although he had always turned a deaf ear to Gaston's
attempts to instruct him in the latter language. However, a grunt was
his only reply.

"Or," pursued the Squire, "have you any fancy for carrying it yourself?
I, for my part, think we are well quit of the trouble."

"Why, ay," said Leonard, "but I trow I have as much right to serve at
the Prince's table as dainty Master Eustace. My father had never put
me under Sir Reginald's charge, had he deemed I should be kept here
among the serving-men."

"Sir Reginald? Which Sir Reginald has the honour of your service?"
asked the Squire, to whom Leonard's broad Somersetshire dialect seemed
to present few difficulties.

"Sir Reginald Lynwood, he with the curled brown locks, next to that
stern-looking old fellow with the gray hair."

"Ay, I know him of old. Him whom the Duke of Lancaster is pledging--a
proud, strict Englishman--as rigid a service as any in the camp."

"I should think so!" said Leonard. "Up in the morn hours before the
sun, to mass like a choir of novices, to clean our own arms and the
Knight's, like so many horse-boys, and if there be but a speck of rust,
or a sword-belt half a finger's length awry--"

"Ay, ay, I once had a fortnight's service with a Knight of that stamp,
but a fortnight was enough for me, I promise you. And yet Gaston le
Maure chooses to stay with him rather than lead a merry life with Sir
Perduccas d'Albret, with all to gain, and nought to lose! A diff