A Monk of Fife<br />Being the Chronicle Written by Norman Leslie of Pitcullo, Concerning Marvellous, Andrew Lang [speld decodable readers TXT] 📗

and goes questing everywhere, and comfortless.  Then Randal Rutherford, coming to visit me, found me such a lackmirth, he said, and my wits so distraught, that a love-sick wench were better company for a man-at-arms.

“Cheer up, man,” he said.  “Look at me, did I not leave my heart at Branxholme Mains with Mally Grieve, and so in every town where I have been in garrison, and do you see me cast down?  Off with this green sickness, or never will you have strength to march with the Maid, where there is wealth to be won, and golden coronets, and gaudy stones, such as Saunders Macausland took off the Duke of Clarence at Baugé.  Faith, between the wound Capdorat gave you and this arrow of Dan Cupid’s in your heart, I believe you will not be of strength to carry arms till there is not a pockpudding left in broad France.  Come forth, and drain a pot or two of wine, or, if the leech forbids it, come, I will play you for all that is owing between you and me.”

With that he lugged out his dice and fetched a tablier, but presently vowed that it was plain robbery, for I could keep no count of the game.  Therewith he left me, laughing and mocking, and saying that I had been bolder with Robin Lindsay’s lass.

Being alone and out of all comfort, I fell to wandering in the workroom, and there lit, to my solace, on that blessed book of the hundred ballades, which my master was adorning with pictures, and with scarlet, blue, and gold.  It set forth how a young knight, in sorrow of love, was riding between Pont de Cé and Angiers, and how other knights met him and gave him counsel.  These lines I read, and getting them by rote, took them for my device, for they bid the lover thrust himself foremost in the press, and in breach, mine, and escalade.

S’en assault viens, devant te lance,
En mine, en eschielle, en tous lieux
Ou proesce les bons avance,
Ta Dame t’en aimera mieux.

But reading soon grew a weariness to me, as my life was, and my master coming home, bade me be of better cheer.

“By St. Andrew,” quoth he, “this is no new malady of thine, but well known to leeches from of old, and never yet was it mortal!  Remede there is none, save to make ballades and rondels, and forget sorrow in hunting rhymes, if thou art a maker.  Thou art none?  Nay, nor ever was I, lad; but I have had this disease, and yet you see me whole and well.  Come, lend me a hand at painting in these lilies; it passes not thy skill.”

So I wrought some work whereof I have reason to be proud, for these lilies were carried wheresoever blows and honour were to be won, ay, and where few might follow them.  Meanwhile, my master devised with me about such sights as he had seen on the way, and how great a concourse was on pilgrimage to Puy, and how, if prayers availed, the cause of France was won; “and yet, in England too, wives are praying for their lords, and lasses for their lads in France.  But ours is the better quarrel.”

So that weary day went by, one of the longest that I have known, and other days, till now the leech said that I might go back to the castle, though that I might march to the wars he much misdoubted.  Among the archers I had the best of greetings, and all quarrels were laid by, for, as was said, we were to set forth to Orleans, where would be blows enough to stay the greediest stomach.  For now the Maid had won all hearts, taking some with her piety, and others with her wit and knowledge, that confounded the doctors, how she, a simple wench, was so subtle in doctrine, which might not be but by inspiration.  Others, again, were moved by her mirth and good-fellowship, for she would strike a man-at-arms on the shoulder like a comrade, and her horsemanship and deftness with sword and lance bewitched others, she seeming as valiant and fair as these lady crusaders of whom old romances tell.  And others, again, she gained by bourdes and jests; others by her manners, the fairest and most courtly that might be, for she, a manant’s daughter, bore herself as an equal before the blood of France, and was right dear to the young bride of the fair Duc d’Alençon.  Yet was there about her such a grace of purity, as of one descended from the skies, that no man of them all was so hardy as to speak to her of love, or even so much as to think thereof in the secret of his heart.

So all reported of her, and she had let write a letter to the English at Orleans, bidding them yield to God and the Maid, and begone to their own country, lest a worse thing befall them.  At this letter they mocked, swearing that they would burn her heralds who carried the message.  But the King had named her chief of war, and given her a household, with a good esquire, Jean d’Aulon, to govern it, and all that beseems noble or royal blood.  New armour had been made for her, all of steel and silver, and there was talk of a sword that she had come by in no common way, but through revelation of the saints.  For she being in Tours had it revealed to her that a certain ancient sword, with five crosses on the blade, lay buried behind the altar of St. Catherine of Fierbois.  An armourer of Tours was therefore sent thither, and after much labour and search they of St. Catherine’s Church found that sword, very ancient, and much bestained with rust.  Howbeit, they cleaned it and made for it a sheath of cloth of gold.  Nevertheless, the Maid wore it in a leathern scabbard.

CHAPTER XI—HOW MADAME CATHERINE OF FIERBOIS WROUGHT A MIRACLE FOR A SCOT, AND HOW NORMAN RODE TO THE WARS

Now, in this place I cannot withhold me from telling of an adventure which at this very time befell, though it scarce belongs to my present chronicle.  But it may be that, in time to come, faith will wax cold, and the very saints be misdoubted of men.  It therefore behoves me not to hold back the truth which I know, and which this tale makes plain and undeniable even by Hussites, Lollards, and other miscreants.  For he who reads must be constrained to own that there is no strait so terrible but the saints can bring safely forth therefrom such men as call upon them.

There came at this season to Chinon from Fierbois (where the Maid’s sword was found by miracle) a Scottish archer, not aforetime of our company, though now he took service with us.  He was named Michael Hamilton, and was a tall man and strong, grim of face, sudden in anger, heavy of hand, walked a little lame, and lacked one ear.  That which follows he himself told to us and to our chaplain, Father Urquhart, and I myself have read it in the Book of the Miracles of Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois. {22}

You must know that Brittany, as at this time, held for the English, and Michael Hamilton had gone thither reiving and pillaging the country with a company of Scots men-at-arms.  Hard by a place called Clisson they had seized a deserted tower and held it for some days.  It so fell out that they took a burgess of the country, who was playing the spy on their quarters; him they put to the torture, and so learned that the English were coming against them with a great company of men-at-arms and of the country folk, on that very night.  They therefore delayed no longer than to hang the spy from a sufficient bough of a tree, this Michael doing what was needful, and so were hurrying to horse, when, lo! the English were upon them.  Not having opportunity to reach the stables and mount, Michael Hamilton fled on foot, with what speed he might, but sorely impeded by the weight of his armour.  The country folk, therefore, being light of foot, easily overtook him, and after slaying one and wounding more, he was caught in a noose of rope thrown over him from behind.  Now, even as he felt the noose tighten about his arms, he (though not commonly pious beyond the wont of men-at-arms) vowed in his heart to make a pilgrimage to Fierbois, and to the shrine of Madame St. Catherine, if she would but aid him.  And, indeed, he was ever a worshipper of St. Catherine, she being the patroness of his own parish kirk, near Bothwell.  None the less, he was overcome and bound, whereon he that had thrown the noose, and was son of the spy whom Michael had hanged, vowed that he would, with his own hands, hang Michael.  No ransom would this manant take, nor would he suffer Michael, as a gentleman of blood and birth, to die by the sword.  So hanged Michael was; doubt not but it was done in the best manner, and there he was left hanging.

Now, that night of Maundy Thursday the curé of Clisson was in his chamber and was about to go to bed.  But as he made ready for bed he heard, from a corner of the chamber, a clear voice saying, “Go forth and cut down the Scots man-at-arms who was hanged, for he yet lives.”

The curé, thinking that he must be half asleep and dreaming, paid no manner of regard to these commands.  Thereon the voice, twice and thrice, spoke aloud, none save the curé being present, and said, “Go forth and cut down the Scots man-at-arms who was hanged, for he yet lives.”

It often so chances that men in religion are more hard of heart to believe than laymen and the simple.  The curé, therefore, having made all due search, and found none living who could have uttered that voice, went not forth himself, but at noon of Good Friday, his service being done, he sent his sexton, as one used not to fear the sight and company of dead men.  The sexton set out, whistling for joy of the slaying of the Scot, but when he came back he was running as fast as he might, and scarce could speak for very fear.  At the last they won from him that he had gone to the tree where the dead Scot was hanging, and first had heard a faint rustle of the boughs.  Not affrighted, the sexton drew out a knife and slit one of Michael’s bare toes, for they had stripped him before they hanged him.  At the touch of the knife the blood came, and the foot gave a kick, whereon the sexton hastened back with these tidings to the curé.  The holy man, therefore, sending for such clergy as he could muster, went at their head, in all his robes canonical, to the wild wood, where they cut Michael down and rubbed his body and poured wine into his throat, so that, at the end of half an hour, he sat up and said, “Pay Waiter Hay the two testers that I owe him.”

Thereon most ran and hid themselves, as if from a spirit of the dead, but the manant, he whose father Michael had hanged, made at him with a sword, and dealt him a great blow, cutting off his ear.  But others who had not fled, and chiefly the curé, held the manant till his hands were bound, that he might not slay one so favoured of Madame St. Catherine.  Not that they knew of Michael’s vow, but it was plain to the curé that the man was under the protection of Heaven.  Michael then, being kindly nursed in a house of a certain Abbess, was wellnigh recovered, and his vow wholly forgotten, when lo! he being alone, one invisible smote his cheek, so that the room rang with the buffet, and a voice said to him, “Wilt thou never remember thy pilgrimage?”  Moved, therefore, to repentance, he stole the curé’s horse, and so, journeying by night till he reached France, he accomplished his vows, and was now returned to Chinon.  This Michael Hamilton was hanged, not very long afterwards, by command of the Duc d’Alençon, for plundering a church at Jargeau.

The story I have thought it behoved me to tell in this place, because it shows how good and mild is Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois, also lest memory of it be lost in Scotland, where it cannot but be of great comfort to all gentlemen of Michael’s kin and of the name and house of Hamilton.  Again, I tell it because I