her brat on her back. There was a blind man, with his staff, who might
well enough answer to Keen-eye, that is, when no strangers were in sight.
There was a layman, wearing cope and stole and selling indulgences, but
our captain, Brother Thomas, soon banished him from our company, for that
he divided the trade. Others there were, each one of them a Greedy-gut,
a crew of broken men, who marched with us on the roads; but we never
entered a town or a house with these discreditable attendants.

Now, it may seem strange, but the nearer we drew to Chinon and the Court,
the poorer grew the country, for the Court and the men-at-arms had
stripped it bare, like a flight of locusts. For this reason the Dauphin
could seldom abide long at one place, for he was so much better known
than trusted that the very cordwainer would not let him march off in a
new pair of boots without seeing his money, and, as the song said, he
even greased his old clouted shoon, and made them last as long as he
might. For head-gear he was as ill provided, seeing that he had pawned
the fleurons of his crown. There were days when his treasurer at Tours
(as I myself have heard him say) did not reckon three ducats in his
coffers, and the heir of France borrowed money from his very cook. So
the people told us, and I have often marvelled how, despite this poverty,
kings and nobles, when I have seen them, go always in cloth of gold, with
rich jewels. But, as you may guess, near the Court of a beggar Dauphin
the country-folk too were sour and beggarly.

We had to tighten our belts before we came to the wood wherein
cross-roads meet, from north, south, and east, within five miles of the
town of Chinon. There was not a white coin among us; night was falling,
and it seemed as if we must lie out under the stars, and be fed, like the
wolves we heard howling, on wind. By the roadside, at the crossways, but
not in view of the road, a council of our ragged regiment was held in a