end, for he still lives), yet
it was an ill day that we met--an ill day for me and for France. Howbeit
we jogged on, he merrily enough singing a sculdudery song, I something
surly, under a grey February sky, with a keen wind searching out the
threadbare places in our raiment. My comrade, as he called himself, told
me what passages he chose in the history of his life: how he came to be
frocked (but 'cucullus non facit monachum'), and how, in the troubles of
these times, he had discovered in himself a great aptitude for the
gunner's trade, of which he boasted not a little. He had been in one and
another of these armed companies that took service with either side, for
hire, being better warriors and more skilled than the noblesse, but a
curse to France: for, in peace or war, friend or foe, they plundered all,
and held all to ransom. With Rodrigo de Villandradas, that blood-hound
of Spain, he had been high in favour, but when Rodrigo went to harry
south and east, he had tarried at Ruffec, with another thief of that
nation, Alfonse Rodigo. All his talk, as we went, was of slaying men in
fight; whom he slew he cared not much, but chiefly he hated the English
and them of Burgundy. To him, war was what hunting and shooting game is
to others; a cruel and bloody pastime, when Christians are the quarry!

"John the Lorrainer, and I, there are no others to be named with us at
the culverin," he would brag. "We two against an army, give us good
cover, and powder and leaden balls enough. Hey! Master John and I must
shoot a match yet, against English targets, and of them there are plenty
under Orleans. But if I make not the better speed, the town will have
fallen, or yielded, rescue or no rescue, and of rescue there is no hope
at all. The devil fights for the English, who will soon be swarming over
the Loire, and that King of Bourges of ours will have to flee, and gnaw
horse's fodder, oats and barley, with your friends in Scotland."

This was one of the many ungenerous taunts which the French made often
against us Scots, that have been their ancient and leal brethren in arms
since the days of King Achaius and Charlemagne.

"The Dauphin," he went on, "for King he is none, and crowned he will
never be, should be in Orleans, leading his men; and lo! he is tied to
the belt of fat La Tremouille, and is dancing of ballets at Chinon--a
murrain on him, and on them that make his music!" Then he fell to
cursing his King, a thing terr