m."

"The young man," said Petit Andre, now coming forward, "has only to keep
the path which lies straight before him, and it will conduct him to a
place where he will find the man who is to act as his guide.

"I would not for a thousand ducats be absent from my Chief this day
I have hanged knights and esquires many a one, and wealthy Echevins
[during the Middle Ages royal officers possessing a large measure of
power in local administration], and burgomasters to boot--even counts
and marquises have tasted of my handiwork but, a-humph"--he looked at
the Duke, as if to intimate that he would have filled up the blank with
"a Prince of the Blood!"

"Ho, ho, ho! Petit Andre, thou wilt be read of in Chronicle!"

"Do you permit your ruffians to hold such language in such a presence?"
said Crawford, looking sternly to Tristan.

"Why do you not correct him yourself, my Lord?" said Tristan, sullenly.

"Because thy hand is the only one in this company that can beat him
without being degraded by such an action."

"Then rule your own men, my Lord, and I will be answerable for mine,"
said the Provost Marshal.

Lord Crawford seemed about to give a passionate reply, but as if he
had thought better of it, turned his back short upon Tristan, and,
requesting the Duke of Orleans and Dunois to ride one on either hand of
him, he made a signal of adieu to the ladies, and said to Quentin, "God
bless thee, my child, thou hast begun thy service valiantly, though in
an unhappy cause."

He was about to go off when Quentin could hear Dunois whisper to
Crawford, "Do you carry us to Plessis?"

"No, my unhappy and rash friend," answered Crawford, with a sigh, "to
Loches."

"To Loches!" The name of a castle, or rather prison, yet more dreaded
than Plessis itself, fell like a death toll upon the ear of the young
Scotchman. He had heard it described as a place destined to the workings
of those secret acts of cruelty with which even Louis shamed to pollute
the interior of his own residence. There were in this place of terror
dungeons under dungeons, some of them unknown even to the keepers
themselves, living graves, to which men were consigned with little hope
of farther employment during the rest of their life than to breathe
impure air, and feed on bread and water. At this formidable castle were
also those dreadful places of confinement called cages, in which the
wretched prisoner could neither stand upright nor stretch himself at
length,