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

Again came a hush, and then one voice, clear as a clarion call, even the voice of the Maid, “Tirez en avant, en avant!”  How my blood thrilled at the sound of it!

It must be now, I thought, or never, but the guns only roared the louder, the din grew fierce and fiercer, till I heard a mighty roar, the English shouting aloud as one man for joy, for so their manner is.  Thrice they shouted, and my heart sank within me.  Had they slain the Maid?  I knew not, but for torment of soul there is scarce any greater than so to lie, bound and alone, seeing nought, but guessing at what is befalling.

After these shouts it was easy to know that the fighting waned, and was less fierce.  The day, moreover, turned to thunder, and waxed lowering and of a stifling heat.  Yet my worst fears were ended, for I heard, now and again, the clear voice of the Maid, bidding her men “fight on, for all was theirs.”  But the voice was weaker now, and other than it had been.  So the day darkened, only once and again a shot was fired, and in the dusk the shouts of the English told me over clearly that for to-day our chance and hope were lost.  Then the darkness grew deeper, and a star shone through my casement, and feet went up and down upon the stairs, but no man came near me.  Below there was some faint cackle of mirth and laughter, and at last the silence fell.

Once more came a swift step on the stairs, as of one stumbling up in haste.  The key rattled in the wards, a yellow light shone in, a man-at-arms entered; he held a torch to my face, looked to my bonds, and then gave me a kick, while one cried from below, “Come on, Dickon, your meat is cooling!”  So he turned and went out, the door clanging behind him, and the key rattling in the wards.

In pain and fierce wrath I gnawed my black bread, drank some of the water, and at last I bethought me of that which should have been first in the thoughts of a Christian man, and I prayed.

Remembering the story of Michael Hamilton, which I have already told, and other noble and virtuous miracles of Madame St. Catherine of Fierbois, I commanded me to her, that, by God’s grace, she would be pleased to release me from bonds and prison.  And I promised that, if she would so favour me, I would go on pilgrimage to her chapel of Fierbois.  I looked that my chains should now fall from my limbs, but, finding no such matter, and being very weary (for all the last night I had slept none), I fell on slumber and forgot my sorrow.

Belike I had not lain long in that blessed land where trouble seldom comes when I was wakened, as it were, by a tugging at my clothes.  I sat up, but the room was dark, save for a faint light in the casement, high overhead, and I thought I had dreamed.  Howbeit, as I lay down again, heavy at heart, my clothes were again twitched, and now I remembered what I had heard, but never believed, concerning “lutins” or “brownies,” as we call them, which, being spirits invisible, and reckoned to have no part in our salvation, are wont in certain houses to sport with men.  Curious rather than affrighted, I sat up once more, and looked around, when I saw two bright spots of light in the dark.  Then deeming that, for some reason unknown to me, the prison door had been opened while I slept, and a cat let in, I stretched out my hands towards the lights, thence came a sharp, faint cry, and something soft and furry leaped on to my breast, stroking me with little hands.

It was Elliot’s jackanapes, very meagre, as I could feel, and all his ribs standing out, but he made much of me, fondling me after his manner; and indeed, for my lady’s sake, I kissed him, wondering much how he came there.  Then he put something into my hands, almost as if he had been a Christian, for it was a wise beast and a kind.  Even then there shone into my memory the thought of how my lady had prayed for her little friend when he was stolen (which I had thought strange, and scarcely warranted by our Faith), and with that, hope wakened within me.  My eyes being now more accustomed to the darkness, I saw that the thing which the jackanapes gave me was a little wallet, for he had been taught to fetch and carry, and never was such a marvel at climbing.  But as I was caressing him, I found a string about his neck, to which there seemed to be no end.  Now, at length, I comprehended what was toward, and pulling gently at the string, I found, after some time, that it was attached to something heavy, on the outside of the casement.  Therefore I set about drawing in string from above, and more string, and more, and then appeared a knot and a splice, and the end of a thick rope.  So I drew and drew, till it stopped, and I could see a stout bar across the stanchions of the casement.  Thereon I ceased drawing, and opening the little wallet, I found two files, one very fine, the other of sturdier fashion.

Verily then I blessed the violer woman, who at great peril of her own life, and by such witty device as doubtless Madame St. Catherine put into her heart, had sent the jackanapes up from below, and put me in the way of safety.  I wasted no time, but began filing, not at the thick circlet on my wrist, but at a link of the chain whereto it was made fast.  And such was the temper of the file, that soon I got the stouter weapon into the cut, and snapped the link; and so with the others, working long hours, and often looking fearfully for the first glimmer of dawn.  This had not come in, when I was now free of bonds, but there was yet the casement to be scaled.  With all my strength I dragged and jerked at the rope, whereby I meant to climb, lest the stanchions should be rusted through, and unable to bear my weight, but they stood the strain bravely.  Then I cast off my woman’s kirtle, and took from my pouch the arrow-point, and therewith scratched hastily on the plastered wall, in great letters: “Norman Leslie of Pitcullo leaves his malison on the English.”

Next I bound the jackanapes within the bosom of my doublet, with a piece of the cord whereto the rope had been knotted, for I could not leave the little beast to die the death of a traitor, and bring suspicion, moreover, on the poor violer woman.  Then, commanding myself to the Saints, and especially thanking Madame St. Catherine, I began to climb, hauling myself up by the rope, whereon I had made knots to this end; nor was the climbing more difficult than to scale a branchless beech trunk for a bird’s nest, which, like other boys, I had often done.  So behold me, at last, with my legs hanging in free air, seated on the sill of the casement.  Happily, of the three iron stanchions, though together they bore my weight, one was loose in the lower socket, for lack of lead, and this one I displaced easily enough, and so passed through.  Then I put the wooden bar at the rope’s end, within the room, behind the two other stanchions, considering that they, by themselves, would bear my weight, but if not, rather choosing to trust my soul to the Saints than my body to the English.

The deep below me was very terrible to look upon, and the casement being above the dry ditch, I had no water to break my fall, if fall I must.  Howbeit, I hardened my heart, and turning my face to the wall, holding first the wooden bar, and then shifting my grasp to the rope, I let myself down, clinging to the rope with my legs, and at first not a little helped by the knots I had made to climb to the casement.  When I had passed these, methought my hands were on fire; nevertheless, I slid down slowly and with caution, till my feet touched ground.

I was now in the dry ditch, above my head creaked and swung the dead body of the hanged marauder, but he did no whit affray me.  I ran, stooping, along the bed of the dry ditch, for many yards, stumbling over the bodies of men slain in yesterday’s fight, and then, creeping out, I found a hollow way between two slopes, and thence crawled into a wood, where I lay some little space hidden by the boughs.  The smell of trees and grass and the keen air were like wine to me; I cooled my bleeding hands in the deep dew; and presently, in the dawn, I was stealing towards St. Denis, taking such cover of ditches and hedges as we had sought in our unhappy march of yesterday.  And I so sped, by favour of the Saints, that I fell in with no marauders; but reaching the windmill right early, at first trumpet-call, I was hailed by our sentinels for the only man that had won in and out of Paris, and had carried off, moreover, a prisoner, the jackanapes.  To see me, scarred, with manacles on my wrists and gyves on my ankles, weaponless, with an ape on my shoulder, was such a sight as the Scots Guard had never beheld before, and carrying me to the smith’s, they first knocked off my irons, and gave me wine, ere they either asked me for my tale, or told me their own, which was a heartbreak to bear.

For no man could unfold the manner of that which had come to pass, if, at least, there were not strong treason at the root of all.  For our part of the onfall, the English had made but a feigned attack on the mill, wherefore the bale-fires were lit, to our undoing.  This was the ruse de guerre of the accursed cordelier, Brother Thomas.  For the rest, the Maid had led on a band to attack the gate St. Honoré, with Gaucourt in her company, a knight that had no great love either of her or of a desperate onslaught.  But D’Alençon, whom she loved as a brother, was commanded to take another band, and wait behind a butte or knowe, out of danger of arrow-shot.  The Maid had stormed all day at her gate, had taken the boulevard without, and burst open and burned the outer port, and crossed the dry ditch.  But when she had led up her men, now few, over the slope and to the edge of the wet fosse, behold no faggots and bundles of wood were brought up, whereby, as is manner of war, to fill up the fosse, and so cross over.  As she then stood under the wall, shouting for faggots and scaling-ladders, her standard-bearer was shot to death, and she was sorely wounded by an arbalest bolt.  Natheless she lay by the wall, still crying on her men, but nought was ready that should have been, many were slain by shafts and cannon-shot, and in the dusk, she weeping and crying still that the place was theirs to take, D’Alençon carried her off by main force, set her on her horse, and so brought her back to St. Denis.

Now, my mind was, and is to this day, that there was treason here, and a black stain on the chivalry of France, to let a girl go so far, and not to follow her.  But of us Scots many were slain, and more wounded, while Robin Lindsay died in Paris gate, and Randal Rutherford lay a prisoner in English hands.

Of our Blessed Lord Himself it is said in the Gospel of St. Matthew, “et non fecit ibi virtutes multas propter incredulitatem illorum.”  These words I willingly leave in the Roman tongue; for by the wisdom of Holy Church it is deemed that many mysteries should not be published abroad in the vulgar speech, lest the unlearned hear to their own confusion.  But if even He, doubtless by the wisdom of His own will, did not many great works “propter incredulitatem,” it is the less to be marvelled at that His Saints, through the person of the Blessed Maid, were of no avail where men utterly disbelieved.  And that, where infidelity was, even she must labour in vain was shown anon, even on this very day of my