his own quarters some score of bold and congenial spirits amongst the
youthful gentlemen who followed his father's banner, to pass the time
with them in joyous feasting, and to lay plans for the glory of the
coming day.

It is difficult in these modern days to realize how young were some
amongst those who took part in the great battles of the past. The Black
Prince, as he was afterwards called from the sombre hue of the armour he
wore, was not yet fifteen when the Battle of Crecy was fought; and when
the King had summoned his bold subjects to follow him to the war, he had
called upon all knights and gentlemen between the ages of sixteen and
twenty to join themselves to him for this campaign in France. Lads who
would now be reckoned as mere schoolboys were then doughty warriors
winning their spurs in battle; and some of the most brilliant charges of
those chivalrous days were led and carried through mainly by striplings
scarce twenty years old. Inured from infancy to hardy sports, and
trained to arms to the exclusion almost of all other training, these
bold sons of England certainly proved equal to the demands made upon
them. True, they were often skilfully generalled by older men, but the
young ones held their own in prowess in the field; and child as the
Prince of Wales would now be considered, the right flank of the army was
to be led by him upon the morrow; and though the Earls of Warwick and
Hereford and other trusty veterans were with him, his was the command,
and to him were they to look.

No wonder then that the comrades who had marched with him through these
last hazardous days, and who had been with and about him for many months
-- some of them for years -- should rally round him now with the keenest
enthusiasm. The De Brocas brothers were there -- Oliver and Bernard
(John had not left England to follow the fortunes of the war) -- as well