A Monk of Fife. Lang Andrew

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      The creature was used to run questing with a little wooden bowl he carried for largesse, to beg of horsemen for his mistress. This trick of his he did now, hearing the horses’ tramp. He leaped the ditch, and I suppose he ran in front of the steeds, shaking his little bowl, as was his wont.

      “Oh, father,” sounded the girl’s voice, “see the little jackanapes! Some travelling body has lost him. Let me jump down and catch him. Look, he has a little coat on, made like a herald’s tabard, and wears the colours of France. Here, hold my reins.”

      “No, lass. Who can tell where, or who, his owner is? Take you my reins, and I will bring you the beast.”

      I heard him heavily dismount.

      “It will not let itself be caught by a lame man,” he said; and he scrambled up the ditch bank, while the jackanapes fled to me, and then ran forward again, back and forth.

      “Nom Dieu, whom have we here?” cried the man, in French.

      I turned, and made such a sound with my mouth as I might, while the jackanapes nestled to my breast.

      “Why do ye not speak, man?” he said again; and I turned my eyes on him, looking as pitifully as might be out of my blood-bedabbled face.

      He was a burly man, great of growth, with fresh red cheeks, blue eyes, reddish hair, and a red beard, such as are many in the Border marches of my own country, the saints bless them for true men! Withal he dragged his leg in walking, which he did with difficulty and much carefulness. He “hirpled,” as we say, towards me very warily; then, seeing the rope bound about me, and the cloth in my mouth, he drew his dagger, but not to cut my bonds. He was over canny for that, but he slit the string that kept the cursed gag in my mouth, and picked it out with his dagger point; and, oh the blessed taste of that first long draught of air, I cannot set it down in words! “What, in the name of all the saints, make you here, in this guise?” he asked in French, but with a rude Border accent.

      “I am a kindly Scot,” I said in our own tongue, “of your own country. Give me water.” And then a dwawm, as we call it, or fainting-fit, came over me.

      When I knew myself again, I was lying with my head in a maiden’s lap, and well I could have believed that the fairies had carried me to their own land, as has befallen many, whereof some have returned to earth with the tale, and some go yet in that unearthly company.

      “Gentle demoiselle, are you the gracious Queen of Faerie?” I asked, as one half-wakened, not knowing what I said. Indeed this lady was clad all in the fairy green, and her eyes were as blue as the sky above her head, and the long yellow locks on her shoulders were shining like the sun.

      “Father, he is not dead,” she said, laughing as sweet as all the singing-birds in March – “he is not dead, but sorely wandering in his mind when he takes Elliot Hume for the Fairy Queen.”

      “Faith, he might have made a worse guess,” cried the man. “But now, sir, now that your bonds are cut, I see nothing better for you than a well-washed face, for, indeed, you are by ordinary ‘kenspeckle,’ and no company for maids.”

      With that he brought some water from the burn by the road, and therewith he wiped my face, first giving me to drink. When I had drunk, the maid whom he called Elliot got up, her face very rosy, and they set my back against a tree, which I was right sorry for, as indeed I was now clean out of fairyland and back in this troublesome world. The horses stood by us, tethered to trees, and browsed on the budding branches.

      “And now, maybe,” he said, speaking in the kindly Scots, that was like music in my ear – “now, maybe, you will tell us who you are, and how you came into this jeopardy.”

      I told him, shortly, that I was a Scot of Fife; whereto he answered that my speech was strangely English. On this matter I satisfied him with the truth, namely, that my mother was of England. I gave my name but not that of our lands, and showed him how I had been wandering north, to take service with the Dauphin, when I was set upon, and robbed and bound by thieves, for I had no clearness as to telling him all my tale, and no desire to claim acquaintance with Brother Thomas.

      “And the jackanapes?” he asked, whereto I had no better answer than that I had seen the beast with a wandering violer on the day before, and that she having lost it, as I supposed, it had come to me in the night.

      The girl was standing with the creature in her arms, feeding it with pieces of comfits from a pouch fastened at her girdle.

      “The little beast is not mine to give,” I went on, seeing how she had an affection to the ape, “but till the owner claims it, it is all the ransom I have to pay for my life, and I would fain see it wear the colours of this gentle maid who saved me. It has many pretty tricks, but though to-day I be a beggar, I trow she will not let it practise that ill trick of begging.”

      “Sooner would I beg myself, fair sir,” she said, with such a courtly reverence as surprised me; for though they seemed folks well to see in the world, they were not, methought, of noble blood, nor had they with them any company of palfreniers or archers.

      “Elliot, you feed the jackanapes and let our countryman hunger,” said the man; and, blushing again, she made haste to give me some of the provision she had made for her journey.

      So I ate and drank, she waiting on me very gently; but now, being weary of painful writing, and hearing the call to the refectory, and the brethren trampling thither, I must break off, for, if I be late, they will sconce me of my ale. Alas! it is to these little cares of creature comforts that I am come, who have seen the face of so many a war, and lived and fought on rat’s flesh at Compiègne.

      CHAPTER IV – IN WHAT COMPANY NORMAN LESLIE ENTERED CHINON; AND HOW HE DEMEANED HIMSELF TO TAKE SERVICE

      Not seemly, was it, that I should expect these kind people, even though they were of my own country, to do more for me than they had already done. So, when I had eaten and drunk, I made my obeisance as if I would be trudging towards Chinon, adding many thanks, as well I might.

      “Nay, countryman,” said the man, “for all that I can see, you may as well bide a while with us; for, indeed, with leave of my graceless maid, I think we may even end our wild-goose chase here and get us back to the town.”

      Seeing me marvel, perhaps, that any should have ridden some four miles or five, and yet speak of returning, he looked at the girl, who was playing with the jackanapes, and who smiled at him as he spoke. “You must know,” said he, “that though I am the father of your Fairy Queen, I am also one of the gracious Princess’s obedient subjects. No mother has she, poor wench,” he added, in a lower voice; “and faith, we men must always obey some woman – as it seems now that the King himself must soon do and all his captains.”

      “You speak,” I said, “of the gracious Queen of Sicily and Jerusalem?” – a lady who was thought to be of much avail, as was but right, in the counsels of her son-in-law, the Dauphin, he having married her gentle daughter.

      “Ay; Queen Yolande is far ben 7 with the King – would he had no worse counsellors!” said he, smiling; “but I speak of a far more potent sovereign, if all that she tells of herself be true. You have heard, or belike you have not heard, of the famed Pucelle – so she calls herself, I hope not without a warranty – the Lorrainer peasant lass, who is to drive the English into the sea, so she gives us all fair warning?”

      “Never a word have I heard, or never marked so senseless a bruit if I heard it; she must be some moon-struck wench, and in her wits wandering.”

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