, but an endless cause of mirth and mockery to him.
Yet, by reason of the serviceableness of the man in that perilous
country, and my constant surprise and wonder at what he did and said, and
might do next (which no man could guess beforehand), and a kind of
foolish pride in his very wickedness, so much beyond what I had ever
dreamed of, and for pure fear of him also, I found myself following with
him day by day, ever thinking to escape, and never escaping.

I have since deemed that, just as his wickedness was to a boy (for I was
little more), a kind of charm, made up of a sort of admiring hate and
fear, so my guilelessness (as it seemed to him) also wrought on him
strangely. For in part it made sport for him to see my open mouth and
staring eyes at the spectacle of his devilries, and in part he really
hated me, and hated my very virtue of simplicity, which it was his desire
and delight to surprise and corrupt.

On these strange terms, then, now drawn each to other, and now forced
apart, we wended by Poictiers towards Chinon, where the Dauphin and his
Court then lay. So we fared northwards, through Poitou, where we found
evil news enough. For, walking into a village, we saw men, women, and
children, all gathered, gaping about one that stood beside a horse nearly
foundered, its legs thrust wide, its nostrils all foam and blood. The
man, who seemed as weary as his horse, held a paper in his hands, which
the priest of that parish took from him and read aloud to us. The rider
was a royal messenger, one Thomas Scott of Easter Buccleuch, in Rankel
Burn, whom I knew later, and his tidings were evil. The Dauphin bade his
good towns know that, on the 12th of February, Sir John Stewart,
constable of the Scottish forces in France, had fallen in battle at
Rouvray, with very many of his company, and some Frenchmen. They had
beset a convoy under Sir John Fastolf, that was bringing meat to the
English leaguered about Orleans. But Fastolf had wholly routed them (by
treachery, as we later learned of the Comte de Clermont), and Sir John
Stewart, with his brother Sir William, were slain. Wherefore the Dauphin
bade the good towns send him money and men, or all was lost.

Such were the evil tidings, which put me in sore fear for my brother
Robin, one that, in such an onfall, would go far, as beseemed his blood.
But as touching his fortunes, Thomas Scott could tell me neither good nor
bad, though he knew Robin, and gave him a good