you clad in girl's gear, and kissed in the guard-room, he struck hand on
thigh and laughed aloud.

"Then I deemed your cause as good as three parts won, and he could not
hold in, but led me to a chamber where were many lords, dicing and
drinking: Tremouille, Ogilvie, the Bishop of Orleans--that holy man, who
has come to ask for aid from the King,--La Hire, Xaintrailles, and I know
not whom. There I must tell all the chronicle again; and some said this,
and some that, and Tremouille mocks, that the Maid uttered her prophecy
to no other end but to make you fulfil it, and slay her enemy for the
sake of her 'beaux yeux.' The others would hear nothing of this, and,
indeed, though I am no gull, I wot that Tremouille is wrong here, and
over cunning; he trusts neither man nor woman. Howsoever it be, he went
with the story to the King, who is keen to hear any new thing. And, to
be short, the end of it is this: that you have your free pardon, on these
terms, namely, that you have two score of masses said for the dead man,
and yourself take service under Sir Hugh Kennedy, that the King may not
lose a man-at-arms."

Never, sure, came gladder tidings to any man than these to me. An hour
ago the rope seemed tight about my neck; one day past, and I was but a
prentice to the mean craft of painting and limning, arts good for a monk,
or a manant, but, save for pleasure, not to be melled or meddled with by
a man of gentle blood. And now I was to wear arms, and that in the best
of causes, under the best of captains, one of my own country--a lord in
Ayrshire.

"Ay, even so," my master said, marking the joy in my face, "you are right
glad to leave us--a lass and a lameter. {17} Well, well, such is youth,
and eld is soon forgotten."