p them!" cried the old priest. "A higher King than yours has
given them to me, and I tell you here in your own castle hall, Sir
Tristram de Rochefort, that you have sinned deeply in your dealings with
these poor folk, and that the hour will come, and may even now be at
hand, when God's hand will be heavy upon you for what you have done." He
rose as he spoke, and walked slowly from the room.

"Pest take him!" cried the French knight. "Now, what is a man to do with
a priest, Sir Bertrand?--for one can neither fight him like a man nor
coax him like a woman."

"Ah, Sir Bertrand knows, the naughty one!" cried the Lady Rochefort.
"Have we not all heard how he went to Avignon and squeezed fifty
thousand crowns out of the Pope."

"Ma foi!" said Sir Nigel, looking with a mixture of horror and
admiration at Du Guesclin. "Did not your heart sink within you? Were you
not smitten with fears? Have you not felt a curse hang over you?"

"I have not observed it," said the Frenchman carelessly. "But by Saint
Ives! Tristram, this chaplain of yours seems to me to be a worthy man,
and you should give heed to his words, for though I care nothing for
the curse of a bad pope, it would be a grief to me to have aught but a
blessing from a good priest."

"Hark to that, my fair lord," cried the Lady Rochefort. "Take heed, I
pray thee, for I do not wish to have a blight cast over me, nor a palsy
of the limbs. I remember that once before you angered Father Stephen,
and my tire-woman said that I lost more hair in seven days than ever
before in a month."

"If that be sign of sin, then, by Saint Paul! I have much upon my soul,"
said Sir Nigel, amid a general laugh. "But in very truth, Sir Tristram,
if I may venture a word of counsel, I should advise that you make your
peace with this good man."

"He shall have four silver candlesticks," said the seneschal moodily.
"And yet I would that he would leave the folk alone. You cannot conceive
in your mind how stubborn and brainless they are. Mules and pigs are
full of reason beside them. God He knows that I have had great patience
with them. It was but last week that, having to raise some money,
I called up to the castle Jean Goubert, who, as all men know, has a
casketful of gold pieces hidden away in some hollow tree. I give you my
word that I did not so much as lay a stripe upon his fool's back, but
after speaking with him, and telling him how needful the money was to
me, I left him for the night to