ere cloven, tall and free.
And Turpin swung the helm and sang;
And stars like all the bells at Brie
From cloudy steeples rang.

The rotten leaves are whirling down
Dishevelled from September's crown;
The Emperors have left the town;
The Weald of Sussex, burnt and brown,
Is trampled by the kings.
And Harmuth gallops up the Down,
And, as he rides, he sings.

He sings of battles and of wine,
Of boats that leap the bellowing brine,
Of April eyes that smile and shine,
Of Raymond and Lord Catiline
And Carthage by the sea,
Of saints, and of the Muses Nine
That dwell in Gascony.

And to the King, as he heard this stave, came visions of his youth; of
how he had galloped from Woodstock to Stonesfield on a night of June
within eleven hours, with a company of minstrels, and of how during that
long feast at Arundel he made a song in the vernacular in praise of St.
Anselm. And he remembered that he owed a candle to that saint. For
he had vowed that if the wife of Westermain should meet him after the
tournament he would burn a tall candle at Canterbury before Michaelmas.
But this had escaped his mind, for it had been tossed hither and thither
during days of conflict which had come later, and he was not loth to
believe that the neglect of this service and the idle vow had been
corner-stone of his misfortunes, and had helped to bring about his
miserable plight.

While these threads of memory glimmered in his mind the small tallow
rush-light which lit the dungeon flickered and went out. The chapel
clock struck six. The King made a gesture which meant that the time of
music was over, and Eustace went back to the canteen, where the men of
the guard were playing at dice by the light of smoky rush-lights. The
King lay down on his wooden pallet, whose linen was delicate and of
lawn, embroidered with his own cipher and crown. The pillow, which was
stuffed with scented rushes, was delicious to the cheek, and yielding.

* * * * *

All that night in London Queen Isabella had been waiting for the news
from France. A storm was blowing across the Channel, and the ships
(their pilots were Germans, and bungled in reading the stars) making for
the port turned back towards Dunquerque. It was a storm such as, if you
are in a small boat, turns you back from Broughty Ferry to the Goodwin
Sands. The Queen, who took counsel of no one, was in two minds as to her