d I, being but a subject
of my daughter's, as I said, and this a Saint's Day, when a man may rest
from his paints and brushes, I even let saddle the steeds, and came forth
to see what ferlies Heaven would send us."

"Oh, a lucky day for me, fair sir," I answered him, marvelling to hear
him speak of paint and brushes, and even as I spoke a thought came into
my mind. "If you will listen to me, sir," I said, "and if the gentle
maid, your daughter, will pardon me for staying you so long from the
road, I will tell you that, to my thinking, you have come over late, for
that yesterday the Maiden you speak of rode, after nightfall, into
Chinon."

Now the girl turned round on me, and, in faith, I asked no more than to
see her face, kind or angry. "You tell us, sir, that you never heard
speak of the Maid till this hour, and now you say that you know of her
comings and goings. Unriddle your riddle, sir, if it pleases you, and
say how you saw and knew one that you never heard speech of."

She was still very wroth, and I knew not whether I might not anger her
yet more, so I louted lowly, cap in hand, and said--

"It is but a guess that comes into my mind, and I pray you be not angry
with me, who am ready and willing to believe in this Maid, or in any that
will help France, for, if I be not wrong, last night her coming saved my
life, and that of her own company."

"How may that be, if thieves robbed and bound you?"

"I told you not all my tale," I said, "for, indeed, few would have
believed the thing that had not seen it. But, upon my faith as a
gentleman, and by the arm-bone of the holy Apostle Andrew, which these
sinful eyes have seen, in the church of the Apostle in his own town,
somewhat holy passed this way last night; and if this Maid be indeed sent
from heaven, that holy thing was she, and none other."

"Nom Dieu! saints are not common wayfarers on our roads at night. There
is no 'wale' of saints in this country," said the father of Elliot; "and
as this Pucelle of Lorraine must needs pass by us here, if she is still
on the way, even tell us all your tale."

With that I told them how the "brigands" (for so they now began to call
such reivers as Brother Thomas) were, to my shame, and maugre my head,
for a time of my own company. And I told them of the bushment that they
laid to trap travellers, and how I had striven to give a warning, and how
they bound me and gagged me, and of the strange girl's voice that spoke