n
all the gold goblets upon my father's table if I had my harness so that
I could have turned upon you. I have promised the Countess Beatrice that
I will send her an Englishman or two to kiss her hands."

"One might perchance have a worse fate," said Nigel. "Is this fair dame
your betrothed?"

"She is my love," answered the Frenchman. "We are but waiting for the
Count to be slain in the wars, and then we mean to marry. And this lady
of thine, Nigel? I would that I could see her."

"Perchance you shall, fair sir," said Nigel, "for all that I have seen
of you fills me with desire to go further with you. It is in my mind
that we might turn this thing to profit and to honor, for when Sir
Robert has spoken with you, I am free to do with you as I will."

"And what will you do, Nigel?"

"We shall surely try some small deed upon each other, so that either I
shall see the Lady Beatrice, or you the Lady Mary. Nay, thank me not,
for like yourself, I have come to this country in search of honor, and I
know not where I may better find it than at the end of your sword-point.
My good lord and master, Sir John Chandos, has told me many times that
never yet did he meet French knight nor squire that he did not find
great pleasure and profit from their company, and now I very clearly see
that he has spoken the truth."

For an hour these two friends rode together, the Frenchman pouring forth
the praises of his lady, whose glove he produced from one pocket, her
garter from his vest, and her shoe from his saddle-bag. She was blond,
and when he heard that Mary was dark, he would fain stop then and there
to fight the question of color. He talked too of his great chateau at
Lauta, by the head waters of the pleasant Garonne; of the hundred horses
in the stables, the seventy hounds in the kennels, the fifty hawks in
the mews. His English friend should come there when the wars were
over, and what golden days would be theirs! Nigel too, with his English
coldness thawing before this young sunbeam of the South, found himself
talking of the heather slopes of Surrey, of the forest of Woolmer, even
of the sacred chambers of Cosford.

But as they rode onward towards the sinking sun, their thoughts far away
in their distant homes, their horses striding together, there came that
which brought their minds back in an instant to the perilous hillsides
of Brittany.

It was the long blast of a trumpet blown from somewhere on the farther
side of a ridg