his brother Prince
Humphrey, the Duke of York presented himself with a request that he
might be permitted to lead the vanguard.

Humphrey, who was of a sarcastic turn of mind, amused himself by a few
jokes on the obesity of the royal applicant; but the request was
granted, and York rode off well pleased.

"Stand thou at my stirrup, Calverley," said York to his squire. "I cast
no doubt thou wilt win this day thy spurs; and for me, I look to come
off covered with glory."

"How many yards of glory shall it take to cover his Grace?" whispered
one of the irreverent varlets behind them.

"Howsoe'er, little matter," pursued the Duke. "I can scantly go higher
than I am: wherefore howso I leave the field, little reck I."

Hugh Calverley looked up earnestly at his master.

"Sir Duke," he said, "hath it come into your Grace's mind that no less
yourself than your servants may leave this field dead corpses?"

"Tut, man! croak not," said York. "I have no intent to leave it other
than alive--thou canst do as it list thee."

Two months had elapsed since that August evening when, terrified by his
brother's sudden and violent death, Edward Duke of York had dictated his
will in terms of such abject penitence. The effect of that terror was
wearing away. The unseen world, which had come very near, receded into
the far distance; and the visible world returned to its usual
prominence. And York's aim had always been, not "so to pass through
things temporal that he lost not the things eternal," but so to pass
towards things eternal that he lost not the things temporal. His own
choice proved his heaviest punishment: "for he in his life-time received
his good things."

It was a terrible battle which that day witnessed at Agincourt. In one
quarter of the field Prince Humphrey lay half dead upon the sward; when
the King, riding up and recognising his brother, sprang from his saddle,
took his stand over the prostrate body, and waving his good battle-axe
in his strong firm hand, kept the enemy at bay, and saved his brother's
life. In another direction, a sudden charge of the French pressed a
little band of English officers and men close together, till not one in
the inner ranks could move hand or foot--crushed them closer, closer, as
if the object had been to compress them into a consolidated mass. At
last help came, the French were beaten off, and the living wall was free
to separate into its component atoms of human bodies. But