Deconinck made a lowly reverence and retired, followed by Breydel; but the latter had gone but a few steps when he felt the movements of his body impeded and restrained by the weight of the armor. He turned quickly back to Guy, and said to him:
"Noble Count, I pray you grant me one favor."
"Speak, Messire Breydel, it shall surely be granted to you."
"Look you, most illustrious lord, you have this day conferred on me a signal honor; but yet you will not, of a surety, hinder me from fighting against our enemies."
The knights, astonished at these words, drew nearer to the Dean.
"What do you mean?" asked Guy.
"I mean that this armor constrains and oppresses me beyond endurance, noble Count. I can not move in this coat-of-mail, and the helmet is so heavy that I can not bend my neck; in this prison of iron I shall be slain like a calf bound hand and foot."
"The armor will defend you from the swords of the French," remarked the knight.
"Yes," cried Breydel; "but that is quite needless in my case. So long as I am free, with my ax I fear nothing. I should cut a pretty figure standing in this stiff and ridiculous fashion. No, no, Messires, I will not have it on my body; wherefore, I pray you, noble Count, allow me to remain a simple citizen until after the battle, and then I will try to make acquaintance with this cumbrous armor."
"You may do even as you list, Messire Breydel," answered Guy; "but you are, and must remain, a knight for all that."
"Well, then," cried the Dean, eagerly, "I will be the knight of the ax! Thanks, thanks, most illustrious lord."
Thereupon he left the knightly group, and hastened toward his men. They received him with noisy congratulations, and expressed their joy in reiterated shouts. Before Breydel had reached his Butchers, the armor lay piecemeal on the ground, and he retained only the emblazoned coat-of-arms which Matilda had attached to his neck.
"Albert, my friend," he cried to one of his men, "gather this armor together, and lay it up in my tent; I will not cover my body with iron while you expose your naked breasts to the foe; I will keep the Kermes Festival in my butcher's clothes. They have made me a noble, comrades; but I can not give in to this. My heart is, and will remain, a true butcher's heart, as I mean to let the French know. Come, we will return to the camp; and I will drink my wine with you as I have ever done, and I will give each of you a measure to drink to the success of the Black Lion."
The shouting recommenced on all sides; the ranks were thrown into confusion, and the soldiers were beginning to rush back to the encampment in disorder, so great was their joy at the promise of the Dean.
"Hold there, my men," interposed Breydel, "you must not march in that fashion. Let every one of you keep his rank, or we shall become very queer friends."
The other divisions were already in motion, and returned, with sounding trumpets and flying banners, to the entrenchment, while the party of knights entered the city gate and disappeared behind the walls.
In a very short time the Flemings were sitting in front of their tents discussing the elevation of their Deans. The Butchers sat on the ground in a large circle with their goblets in their hands; huge casks of wine were standing near them, and they were singing, in exulting unison, the lay of the Black Lion. In their midst, upon an empty barrel, sat the ennobled Breydel, who began each stanza after the fashion of a precentor. He drank, in repeated drafts, to his country's liberation; and endeavored, by drawing more closely the bonds of their common hopes and sympathies, to obliterate the memory of his change of rank; for he feared that his comrades might no longer regard him as their friend and boon companion as in time past. Deconinck had shut himself in his tent to avoid the congratulations of his Clothworkers; their expressions of affection moved him too deeply, and he could with difficulty conceal his emotion. He therefore passed the whole day in solitude, while the troops abandoned themselves to feasting and rejoicings.
CHAPTER V
The French general had pitched his camp in a broad plain at a short distance from the city of Lille, and the tents of his countless warriors covered a space of more than tsvo miles in extent. The breastwork which surrounded the host might have led a distant spectator to imagine that he saw before him a fortified city, had not the neighing of horses, the cries of soldiers, the smoke ascending from their numerous fires, and the fluttering of a thousand flags betrayed the presence of a military camp. The part assigned to the nobles and knights was easily distinguished by the splendor and costliness of its standards and embroidered banners; and while their velvet pavilions glowed with every color of the rainbow, the rest of the camp showed only the ordinary tents of canvas, or huts of straw. It might have been matter of wonder that such an enormous host did not perish of hunger, for in those days armies seldom took stores with them; yet they were supplied in such overflowing abundance that corn was suffered to lie about in the mud, and the most valuable articles of food were everywhere trampled under foot. The French took the best means at once to supply their own wants and to deepen the hatred with which the Flemings regarded them. They scoured the country day by day in large bands, plundering and laying waste on
