are so wild that it scarce pays the trouble of driving them to the nearest
market, and we are always ready to grant permission to any of the vassals,
whose cattle have not done as well as usual, to go out and kill one or two
for meat."

"I hear from the Governor of Calais," Sir Eustace said, when he returned
from a visit to that town, "that a truce has been agreed upon between
England and France for a year; it is France who asked for it, I suppose.
Both parties here wanted to be able to fight it out without interference.
Here, in Artois, where the Burgundians are most numerous, they will
profit, as they will have no fear of England trying to regain some of her
lost territory, while in the south it will leave Armagnac and his friends
equally free from English incursions from Guienne."

"And how will it affect us, Eustace?" his wife asked.

"That I have not been able fully to determine. At any rate they will have
no excuse for attacking us upon the ground that we are partly English, and
wholly so in feeling; but upon the other hand, if we are attacked either
by Burgundians or Orleanists, we cannot hope, as we should have done
before, for aid from Calais, lying as we do some fifteen miles beyond the
frontier. Amiens has already declared for Burgundy, in spite of the fact
that a royal proclamation has been issued, and sent to every town and
bailiwick through France, strictly commanding all persons whatsoever not
to interfere, or in any manner to assist the Dukes of Orleans or Burgundy
in their quarrels with each other. I hear that the Duke of Burgundy has
seized Roye, Nesle, and Ham, and a number of other places, and that both
parties are fortifying all their towns. They say, too, that there is news
that the king has again been seized with one of his fits of madness.
However, that matters little. He has of late been a tool in the hands of