he four men whom the Messire Gilles, by good fortune, failed to see
standing in the doorway opposite the Hotel de Pornic were attired in
the habit of pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella.
Upon their heads they wore broad corded hats of brown. Long brown
robes covered them from head to foot. Their heads were tonsured, and
as they went along they fumbled at their beads and gave their
benediction to the people that passed by, whether they returned them
an alms or not. This they did by spreading abroad the fingers of both
hands and inclining their heads, at the same time muttering to
themselves in a tongue which, if not Latin, was at least equally
unknown to the good folk of Paris.

"It is the house," said the tallest of the four, "stand well back
within the shade!"

"Nay, Sholto, what need?" grumbled another, a very thickset palmer he;
"if the maids be within, let us burst the gates, and go and take them
out!"

"Be silent, Malise," put in the third pilgrim, whose dress of richer
stuff than that of his companions, added to an air of natural command,
betrayed the man of superior rank, "remember, great jolterhead, that
we are not at the gates of Edinburgh with all the south country at our
backs."

The fourth, a slender youth and fresh of countenance, stood somewhat
behind the first three, without speaking, and wore an air of profound
meditation and abstraction.

It is not difficult to identify three out of the four. Sholto's quest
for his sweetheart was a thing fixed and settled. That his father and
his brother Laurence should accompany him was also to be expected. But
the other and more richly attired was somewhat less easy to be
certified. The Lord James of Douglas it was, who spoke French with the
idiomatic use and easy accentuation of a native, albeit of those
central provinces which had longest owned the sway of the King of
France. The brothers MacKim also spoke the language of the country
after a fashion. For many Frenchmen had come over to Galloway in the
trains of the first two Dukes of Touraine, so that the Gallic speech
was a common accomplishment among the youths who sighed to adventure
where so many poor Scots had won fortune, in the armies of the Kings
of France.

Indeed, throughout the centuries Paris cannot be other than Paris. And
Paris was more than ever Paris in the reign of Charles the Seventh.
Her populace, gay, fickle, brave, had just cast off the yoke of the
English, and were now