I pray you to
hasten to your posts and to carry out all that we have agreed. Advance
the oriflamme, Geoffrey, and do you marshal the divisions, Arnold. So
may God and Saint Denis have us in their holy keeping this day!"

The Prince of Wales stood upon that little knoll where Nigel had halted
the day before. Beside him were Chandos, and a tall sun-burned warrior
of middle age, the Gascon Captal de Buch. The three men were all
attentively watching the distant French lines, while behind them a
column of wagons wound down to the ford of the Muisson.

Close in the rear four knights in full armor with open visors sat their
horses and conversed in undertones with each other. A glance at their
shields would have given their names to any soldier, for they were all
men of fame who had seen much warfare. At present they were awaiting
their orders, for each of them commanded the whole or part of a division
of the army. The youth upon the left, dark, slim and earnest, was
William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, only twenty-eight years of age and
yet a veteran of Crecy. How high he stood in reputation is shown by the
fact that the command of the rear, the post of honor in a retreating
army, had been given to him by the Prince. He was talking to a grizzled
harsh-faced man, somewhat over middle age, with lion features and fierce
light-blue eyes which gleamed as they watched the distant enemy. It was
the famous Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, who had fought without a
break from Cadsand onward through the whole Continental War. The other
tall silent soldier, with the silver star gleaming upon his surcoat,
was John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and he listened to the talk of Thomas
Beauchamp, a burly, jovial, ruddy nobleman and a tried soldier, who
leaned forward and tapped his mailed hand upon the other's steel-clad
thigh. They were old battle-companions, of the same age and in the very
prime of life, with equal fame and equal experience of the wars. Such
was the group of famous English soldiers who sat their horses behind the
Prince and waited for their orders.

"I would that you had laid hands upon him," said the Prince angrily,
continuing his conversation with Chandos, "and yet, perchance, it was
wiser to play this trick and make them think that we were retreating."

"He has certainly carried the tidings," said Chandos, with a smile. "No
sooner had the wagons started than I saw him gallop down the edge of the
wood."

"It was well th