e manant, he whose father Michael had hanged, made at him with a sword,
and dealt him a great blow, cutting off his ear. But others who had not
fled, and chiefly the cure, held the manant till his hands were bound,
that he might not slay one so favoured of Madame St. Catherine. Not that
they knew of Michael's vow, but it was plain to the cure that the man was
under the protection of Heaven. Michael then, being kindly nursed in a
house of a certain Abbess, was wellnigh recovered, and his vow wholly
forgotten, when lo! he being alone, one invisible smote his cheek, so
that the room rang with the buffet, and a voice said to him, "Wilt thou
never remember thy pilgrimage?" Moved, therefore, to repentance, he
stole the cure's horse, and so, journeying by night till he reached
France, he accomplished his vows, and was now returned to Chinon. This
Michael Hamilton was hanged, not very long afterwards, by command of the
Duc d'Alencon, for plundering a church at Jargeau.

The story I have thought it behoved me to tell in this place, because it
shows how good and mild is Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois, also lest
memory of it be lost in Scotland, where it cannot but be of great comfort
to all gentlemen of Michael's kin and of the name and house of Hamilton.
Again, I tell it because I heard it at this very season of my waiting to
be recovered of my wound. Moreover, it is a tale of much edification to
men-at-arms, as proving how ready are the saints to befriend us, even by
speaking as it were with human voices to sinful men. Of this I myself,
later, had good proof, as shall be told, wherefore I praise and thank the
glorious virgin, Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois.

This tale was the common talk in Chinon, which I heard very gladly,
taking pleasure in the strangeness of it. And in the good fortune of the
Maid I was yet more joyful, both for her own sake and for Elliot's, to
whom she was so dear. But, for my own part, the leeches gave me little
comfort, saying that I might in no manner set forth with the rest, for
that I could not endure to march on foot, but must die by the way.

Poor comfort was this for me, who must linger in garrison while the
fortune of France was on the cast of the dice, and my own fortune was to
be made now or never. So it chanced that one day I was loitering in the
gateway, watching the soldiers, who were burnishing armour, sharpening
swords, and all as merry and busy as bees in spring. Then to me