friendship of
Dunois?"

"My dearest kinsman," said the Duke, "when or how was it in my purpose
to slight your friendship by telling the truth, when it was due to your
safety and my honour?"

"What had you to do with my safety, my most princely cousin, I would
pray to know?" answered Dunois, gruffly. "What, in God's name, was it
to you, if I had a mind to be hanged, or strangled, or flung into the
Loire, or poniarded, or broke on the wheel, or hung up alive in an iron
cage, or buried alive in a castle fosse, or disposed of in any other
way in which it might please King Louis to get rid of his faithful
subject?--(You need 'not wink and frown, and point to Tristan
l'Hermite--I see the scoundrel as well as you do.) But it would not have
stood so hard with me.--And so much for my safety. And then for your own
honour--by the blush of Saint Magdalene, I think the honour would have
been to have missed this morning's work, or kept it out of sight. Here
has your Highness got yourself unhorsed by a wild Scottish boy."

"Tut, tut!" said Lord Crawford, "never shame his Highness for that. It
is not the first time a Scottish boy hath broke a good lance--I am glad
the youth hath borne him well."

"I will say nothing to the contrary," said Dunois, "yet, had your
Lordship come something later than you did, there might have been a
vacancy in your band of Archers."

"Ay, ay," answered Lord Crawford, "I can read your handwriting in that
cleft morion. Some one take it from the lad and give him a bonnet,
which, with its steel lining, will keep his head better than that broken
loom--And let me tell your Lordship, that your own armour of proof is
not without some marks of good Scottish handwriting. But, Dunois, I must
now request the Duke of Orleans and you to take horse and accompany me,
as I have power and commission to convey you to a place different from
that which my goodwill might assign you."

"May I not speak one word, my Lord of Crawford, to yonder fair ladies?"
said the Duke of Orleans.

"Not one syllable," answered Lord Crawford, "I am too much a friend of
your Highness to permit such an act of folly."

Then addressing Quentin, he added, "You, young man, have done your duty.
Go on to obey the charge with which you are intrusted."

"Under favour, my Lord," said Tristan, with his usual brutality of
manner, "the youth must find another guide. I cannot do without Petit
Andre, when there is so like to be business on hand for hi