ll the time she was in
exile."

"How quarrelsome you English are!" De Lille said. "You seem to be always
fighting among yourselves."

"I don't think," Gervaise said, with a smile, "there is any love lost
between Louis of France and the Duke of Burgundy, to say nothing of
other great lords."

"No; you are right there. But though we talk a great deal about
fighting, it is only occasionally that we engage in it."

The pages' room was a small one. It contained two pallets, which
served as seats by day, and two wooden chests, in which they kept their
clothes.

Their conversation was interrupted by the ringing of a bell.

"That is supper," De Lille said, jumping up. "We will leave you here
while we go down to stand behind our lord's chair. When the meal is over
we will bring a pasty or something else good, and a measure of wine,
and have our supper together up here; and we will tell the servitors to
bring up another pallet for you. Of course, you can go down with us if
you like."

"Thank you, I would much rather stay here. Every one would be strange to
me, and having nothing to do I should feel in the way."

The boys nodded, and taking their caps ran off, while Gervaise, tired by
the excitement of the day, lay down on the bed which a servant brought
up a few minutes after they had left him, and slept soundly until their
return.

"I think I have been asleep," he said, starting up when they entered the
room again.

"You look as if you had, anyhow," De Lille laughed. "It was the best
thing you could do. We have brought up supper. We generally sit down
and eat after the knights have done, but this is much better, as you are
here." They sat down on the beds, carved the pasty with their daggers,
and after they had finished Gervaise gladly accepted the proposal of the
others to take a walk round the walls.

They started from the corner of the castle looking down upon the spit of
land dividing the two ports.

"You see," De Lille said, "there is a row of small islands across the
mouth of the outer port, and the guns of St. Nicholas, and those on this
wall, would prevent any hostile fleet from entering."

"I hardly see what use that port is, for it lies altogether outside the
town, and vessels could not unload there."

"No. Still, it forms a useful place of refuge. In case a great fleet
came to attack us, our galleys would lay up in the inner port, which
would be cleared of all the merchant craft, as these would hamp