XXIV. HOW NIGEL WAS CALLED TO HIS MASTER

"My sweet ladye," wrote Nigel in a script which it would take the eyes
of love to read, "there hath been a most noble meeting in the fourth
sennight of Lent betwixt some of our own people and sundry most worthy
persons of this country, which ended, by the grace of our Lady, in so
fine a joust that no man living can call to mind so fair an occasion.
Much honor was gained by the Sieurde Beaumanoir and also by an Almain
named Croquart, with whom I hope to have some speech when I am hale
again, for he is a most excellent person and very ready to advance
himself or to relieve another from a vow. For myself I had hoped, with
Godde's help, to venture that third small deed which might set me free
to haste to your sweet side, but things have gone awry with me, and I
early met with such scathe and was of so small comfort to my friends
that my heart is heavy within me, and in sooth I feel that I have lost
honor rather than gained it. Here I have lain since the Feast of the
Virgin, and here I am like still to be, for I can move no limb, save
only my hand; but grieve not, sweet lady, for Saint Catharine hath been
our friend since in so short a time I had two such ventures as the Red
Ferret and the intaking of the Reaver's fortalice. It needs but one more
deed, and sickerly when I am hale once more it will not be long ere I
seek it out. Till then, if my eyes may not rest upon you, my heart at
least is ever at thy feet."

So he wrote from his sick-room in the Castle of Ploermel late in the
summer, but yet another summer had come before his crushed head had
mended and his wasted limbs had gained their strength once more. With
despair he heard of the breaking of the truce, and of the fight at
Mauron in which Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Walter Bentley crushed the
rising power of Brittany--a fight in which many of the thirty champions
of Josselin met their end. Then, when with renewed strength and high
hopes in his heart he went forth to search for the famous Croquart who
proclaimed himself ever ready night or day to meet any man with any
weapon, it was only to find that in trying the paces of his new horse
the German had been cast into a ditch and had broken his neck. In the
same ditch perished Nigel's last chance of soon accomplishing that deed
which should free him from his vow.

There was truce once more over all Christendom, and mankind was sated
with war, so that only in far-off Prussi