The rescued prisoners, their hunger appeased and their clothes restored, led the search for booty. Nigel, leaning on his sword by the gateway, saw Aylward totter past, a huge bundle under each arm, another slung over his back, and a smaller packet hanging from his mouth. He dropped it for a moment as he passed his young master.
“By these ten finger-bones! I am right glad that I came to the war, and no man could ask for a more goodly life,” said he. “I have a present here for every girl in Tilford, and my father need never fear the frown of the Sacrist of Waverley again. But how of you, Squire Loring? It standeth not aright that we should gather the harvest whilst you, who sowed it, go forth empty-handed. Come, gentle sir, take these things that I have gathered, and I will go back and find more.”
But Nigel smiled and shook his head. “You have gained what your heart desired, and perchance I have done so also,” said he.
An instant later Knolles strode up to him with outstretched hand.
“I ask your pardon, Nigel,” said he. “I have spoken too hotly in my wrath.”
“Nay, fair sir, I was at fault.”
“If we stand here now within this castle, it is to you that I owe it. The king shall know of it, and Chandos also. Can I do aught else, Nigel, to prove to you the high esteem in which I hold you?”
The squire flushed with pleasure. “Do you send a messenger home to England, fair sir, with news of these doings?”
“Surely, I must do so. But do not tell me, Nigel, that you would be that messenger. Ask me some other favour, for indeed I cannot let you go.”
“Now God forbid!” cried Nigel. “By Saint Paul! I would not be so caitiff and so thrall as to leave you when some small deed might still be done. But I would fain send a message by your messenger.”
“To whom?”
“It is to the Lady Mary, daughter of old Sir John Buttesthorn who dwells near Guildford.”
“But you will write the message, Nigel. Such greetings as a cavalier sends to his ladylove should be under seal.”
“Nay, he can carry my message by word of mouth.”
“Then I shall tell him, for he goes this morning. What message, then, shall he say to the lady?”
“He will give her my very humble greeting, and he will say to her that for the second time Saint Catharine has been our friend.”
XXII
How Robert of Beaumanoir Came to Ploermel
Sir Robert Knolles and his men passed onward that day, looking back many a time to see the two dark columns of smoke, one thicker and one more slender, which arose from the castle and from the fort of La Brohinière. There was not an archer nor a man-at-arms who did not bear a great bundle of spoil upon his back, and Knolles frowned darkly as he looked upon them. Gladly would he have thrown it all down by the roadside, but he had tried such matters before, and he knew that it was as safe to tear a half-gnawed bone from a bear as their blood-won plunder from such men as these. In any case it was but two days’ march to Ploermel, where he hoped to bring his journey to an end.
That night they camped at Mauron, where a small English and Breton garrison held the castle. Right glad were the bowmen to see some of their own countrymen once more, and they spent the night over wine and dice, a crowd of Breton girls assisting, so that next morning their bundles were much lighter, and most of the plunder of La Brohinière was left with the men and women of Mauron. Next day their march lay with a fair sluggish river upon their right, and a great rolling forest upon their left, which covered the whole country. At last, toward evening, the towers of Ploermel rose before them, and they saw against a darkening sky the Red Cross of England waving in the wind. So blue was the river Duc which skirted the road, and so green its banks, that they might indeed have been back beside their own homely streams, the Oxford Thames or the Midland Trent, but ever as the darkness deepened there came in wild gusts the howling of wolves from the forest to remind them that they were in a land of war. So busy had men been for many years in hunting one another that the beasts of the chase had grown to a monstrous degree, until the streets of the towns were no longer safe from the wild inroads of the fierce creatures, the wolves and the bears, who swarmed around them.
It was nightfall when the little army entered the outer gate of the Castle of Ploermel and encamped in the broad bailey-yard. Ploermel was at that time the centre of British power in Mid-Brittany, as Hennebon was in the West, and it was held by a garrison of five hundred men under an old soldier, Richard of Bambro’, a rugged Northumbrian, trained in that great school of warriors, the border wars. He who had ridden the marches of the most troubled frontier in Europe, and served his time against the Liddlesdale and Nithsdale raiders, was hardened for a life in
