rselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting
the slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when God should
please to send it. The Paladin was the only exception--that is to say, he
was the only one who was happy and had no heavy times. This was partly
owing to the satisfaction he got out of his clothes. He bought them at
second hand--a Spanish cavalier's complete suit, wide-brimmed hat with
flowing plumes, lace collar and cuffs, faded velvet doublet and trunks,
short cloak hung from the shoulder, funnel-topped buskins, long rapier,
and all that--a graceful and picturesque costume, and the Paladin's great
frame was the right place to hang it for effect. He wore it when off
duty; and when he swaggered by with one hand resting on the hilt of his
rapier, and twirling his new mustache with the other, everybody stopped
to look and admire; and well they might, for he was a fine and stately
contrast to the small French gentlemen of the day squeezed into the
trivial French costume of the time.

He was king bee of the little village that snuggled under the shelter of
the frowning towers and bastions of Courdray Castle, and acknowledged
lord of the tap-room of the inn. When he opened his mouth there, he got a
hearing. Those simple artisans and peasants listened with deep and
wondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world--all of
it that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate--and that was a wide
stretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been in
battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and
surprised, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk,
hero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was the
pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were his
obliged and willing servants.

Most people who have the narrative gift--that great and rare
endowment--have with it the defect of telling their choice things over
the same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound
stale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with the
Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and
interesting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it was
the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but always
made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties on the
enemy's side each time, and more general wreck and di