yet conversant with the ways of women--nay,
nor ever, in my secular life, have I understood what they would be at.
Happier had it been for my temporal life if I had been wiser in woman's
ways. But commonly, when we have learned a lesson, the lore comes too
late.

Next day my master had business at the castle with a certain lord, and
took me thither to help in carrying his wares. This castle was a place
that I loved well, it is so old, having first been builded when the
Romans were lords of the land; and is so great and strong that our
bishop's castle of St. Andrews seems but a cottage compared to it. From
the hill-top there is a wide prospect over the tower and the valley of
the Vienne, which I liked to gaze upon. My master, then, went in by the
drawbridge, high above the moat, which is so deep that, I trow, no foeman
could fill it up and cross it to assail the walls. My master, in limping
up the hill, had wearied himself, but soon passed into the castle through
the gateway of the bell-tower, as they call it, while I waited for him on
the further end of the bridge, idly dropping morsels of bread to the
swans that swam in the moat below.

On the drawbridge, standing sentinel, was a French man-at-arms, a young
man of my own age, armed with a long fauchard, which we call a bill or
halberd, a weapon not unlike the Lochaber axes of the Highlandmen. Other
soldiers, French, Scottish, Spaniards, Germans, a mixed company, were
idling and dicing just within the gate.

I was throwing my last piece of crust to a swan, my mind empty of
thought, when I started out of my dream, hearing that rare woman's voice
which once I had heard before. Then turning quickly, I saw, walking
between two gentlemen, even those who had ridden with her from
Vaucouleurs, one whom no man could deem to be other than that much-talked-
of Maid of Lorraine. She was clad very simply, like the varlet of some
lord of no great estate, in a black cap with a little silver brooch, a
grey doublet, and black and grey hose, trussed up with many points; a
sword of small price hung by her side. {10} In stature she was something
above the common height of women, her face brown with sun and wind, her
eyes great, grey, and beautiful, beneath black brows, her lips red and
smiling. In figure she seemed strong and shapely, but so slim--she being
but seventeen years of age--that, were it not for her sweet girl's voice,
and for the beauty of her grey eyes, she might we