an spare form of Back Simon who had remained
ever under Nigel's pennon.

But Aylward, where was he? Alas! two years before he and the whole of
Knolles' company of archers had been drafted away on the King's service
to Guienne, and since he could not write the Squire knew not whether he
was alive or dead. Simon, indeed, had thrice heard of him from wandering
archers, each time that he was alive and well and newly married, but as
the wife in one case was a fair maid, and in another a dark, while in
the third she was a French widow, it was hard to know the truth.

Already the army had been gone a month, but news of it came daily to
the town, and such news as all men could read, for through the landward
gates there rolled one constant stream of wagons, pouring down the
Libourne Road, and bearing the booty of Southern France. The town was
full of foot-soldiers, for none but mounted men had been taken by the
Prince. With sad faces and longing eyes they watched the passing of the
train of plunder-laden carts, piled high with rich furniture, silks,
velvets, tapestries, carvings, and precious metals, which had been the
pride of many a lordly home in fair Auvergne or the wealthy Bourbonnais.

Let no man think that in these wars England alone was face to face with
France alone. There is glory and to spare without trifling with the
truth. Two Provinces in France, both rich and warlike, had become
English through a royal marriage, and these, Guienne and Gascony,
furnished many of the most valiant soldiers under the island flag.
So poor a country as England could not afford to keep a great force
overseas, and so must needs have lost the war with France through want
of power to uphold the struggle. The feudal system enabled an army to be
drawn rapidly together with small expense, but at the end of a few weeks
it dispersed again as swiftly, and only by a well-filled money-chest
could it be held together. There was no such chest in England, and the
King was forever at his wits' end how to keep his men in the field.

But Guienne and Gascony were full of knights and squires who were always
ready to assemble from their isolated castles for a raid into France,
and these with the addition of those English cavaliers who fought for
honor, and a few thousand of the formidable archers, hired for fourpence
a day, made an army with which a short campaign could be carried on.
Such were the materials of the Prince's force, some eight thousand
str