Transcriber's Notes
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
been surrounded by _underscores_.
Some presumed punctuation errors have been corrected.
Under the Flag of France
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[Illustration: BERTRAND DEFENDS THE JESTER]
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Under the Flag of France
A Tale of Bertrand du Guesclin
BY
DAVID KER
Author of “Among the Dark Mountains,” etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY STANLEY L. WOOD_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY
1908
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TO
MY NIECES
MARGARET AND MARY KER
THIS TALE
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
PREFACE
I must plead guilty to having, for the purposes of the story, placed my
hero’s castle (which unhappily no longer exists) much nearer to Rennes
than it actually was; but the chief events of his life are given here
very much as I found them in the old French chronicles.
DAVID KER.
CONTENTS
CHAP. Page
I. THE BROKEN BOUGH 1
II. FACING A MONSTER 7
III. A MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 16
IV. BERTRAND’S DREAM 29
V. A TIMELY RESCUE 37
VI. MIGHTY TO STRIKE 51
VII. A STRANGE TALE 67
VIII. LANCE TO LANCE 79
IX. INTO THE DRAGON’S JAWS 93
X. THE WAGES OF JUDAS 103
XI. A MIDNIGHT BATTLE 110
XII. CROWNING AN ENEMY 126
XIII. A RED STAIN 133
XIV. THE BLACK DEATH 140
XV. A NIGHT ALARM 148
XVI. THE BOLDEST DEED OF ALL 161
XVII. THE HAUNTED CIRCLE 168
XVIII. A PHANTOM WARRIOR 177
XIX. IN A ROBBER CAMP 189
XX. DOOMED 194
XXI. THE BLACK WOLF 206
XXII. A CLEVER STRATAGEM 215
XXIII. POSSESSED SWINE 222
XXIV. THROUGH THE DARKNESS 235
XXV. A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 246
XXVI. CRESCENT AND CROSS 259
XXVII. AN ASTOUNDING REVELATION 268
XXVIII. PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT 276
XXIX. TREACHERY 283
XXX. A VILLAGE FESTIVAL 299
XXXI. A STRANGE MEETING 313
XXXII. NEWS OF AN OLD FRIEND 326
XXXIII. THE LAST SUNSET 337
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
BERTRAND DEFENDS THE JESTER _Frontispiece_ 61
BERTRAND GRAPPLES WITH THE WOLF 9
THE BLACK CHAMPION CONQUERS 88
“THE BLACK KNIGHT TURNED LIKE A HUNTED LION” 163
“THE SHOUTING ASSAILANTS BURST IN” 220
“HE STARED AT HIS FOE’S REVEALED FACE” 266
CHAPTER I
The Broken Bough
“What place is there for me on the earth? I would I were dead!”
Startling words, in truth, to hear from any one’s lips; and doubly so
from those of a boy of fourteen, with his whole life before him.
It was a clear, bright evening in the spring of 1334, and the setting
sun was pouring a flood of golden glory over the wooded ridges, and
dark moors, and wide green meadows, and quaint little villages of
Bretagne, or Brittany, then a semi-independent principality ruled by
its own duke, and little foreseeing that, barely two centuries later,
it was to be united to France once for all.
Over earth and sky brooded a deep, dreamy stillness of perfect repose,
broken only by the lowing of cattle from the distant pastures, and the
soft, sweet chime of the vesper-bell from the unseen church tower,
hidden by the still uncleared wood, through one solitary gap in which
were seen the massive grey battlements of Motte-Brun Castle, the
residence of the local “seigneur,” or lord of the manor. A rabbit sat
upright in its burrow to clean its furry face. A squirrel, halfway up
the pillar-like stem of a tall tree, paused a moment to look down with
its small, bright, restless eye; and a tiny bird, perched on a bough
above, broke forth in a blithe carol.
But the soothing influence of this universal peace brought no calm to
the excited lad who was striding up and down a small open space in the
heart of the wood, stamping fiercely ever and anon, and muttering, half
aloud, words that seemed less like any connected utterance than like
the almost unconscious bursting forth of thoughts too torturing to be
controlled.
“Is it my blame that I was born thus ill-favoured? Yet mine own father
and mother gloom upon me and shrink away from me as from one under ban
of holy Church, or taken red-handed in mortal sin. What have I done
that mine own kith and kin should deal with me as with a leper?”
In calling himself ill-favoured, the poor boy had only spoken the
truth; for the features lighted up by the sinking sun, as he turned his
face toward it, were hideous enough for one of the demons with which
these woods were still peopled by native superstition.
His head was unnaturally large, and covered with coarse, black, bristly
hair, which, worn long according to the custom of all men of good birth
in that age, tossed loosely over his huge round shoulders like a
bison’s mane. His light-green eyes, small and fierce as those of a
snake, looked out from beneath a low, slanting forehead garnished with
bushy black eyebrows, which were bent just then in a frown as dark as a
thunder-cloud. His nose was so flat that it almost seemed to turn
inward, and its wide nostrils gaped like the yawning gargoyles of a
cathedral. His large, coarse mouth, the heavy jaw of which was worthy
of a bulldog, was filled with strong, sharp teeth, which, as he gnashed
them in a burst of rage, sent a sudden flash of white across his
swarthy face like lightning in a moonless sky.
His figure was quite as strange as his face. Low of stature and
clumsily built, his vast and almost unnatural breadth of shoulder and
depth of chest gave him the squat, dwarfish form assigned by popular
belief to the deformed “Dwergar” (earth-dwarfs) who then figured
prominently in the legends of all Western Europe. His length of arm was
so great that his hands reached below his knees, while his lower limbs
seemed as much too short as his arms were too long. In a word, had a
half-grown black bear been set on its hind legs, and arrayed in the
rich dress of a fourteenth-century noble, it would have looked just
like this strange boy.
All at once the excited lad stopped short in his restless pacing, and,
as if feeling the need of venting in some violent bodily exertion the
frenzy that boiled within him, snatched from its sheath his only weapon
(a broad-bladed hunting-knife, half cutlass and half dirk), and with
one slash cut half through the thickest part of a large bough just over
his head.
His arm was raised to repeat the blow and sever the branch entirely,
when a new thought struck him, and, flinging down his weapon, he seized
the bough with both hands, and threw his whole strength into a tug that
seemed capable of dislodging not merely the branch, but the tree itself.
The tough wood quivered, cracked, and gave way, and a second
effort—which hung the boy-athlete’s low, broad forehead with beads of
moisture, and made the veins of his strong hands stand out like
cords—wrenched the bough away altogether.
For a moment the young champion’s harsh but striking features
brightened into a smile of joyful pride, natural enough to one who felt
that he possessed surpassing bodily strength in an age when bodily
strength and prowess were the most valued of all qualities. But the
smile faded instantly, and the sullen gloom settled down on his dark
face again, more heavily than before.
“Methinks yon gay cousins of mine,” muttered he, with a grim laugh,
“would be hard put to it to do the like, though they call me dwarf and
lubbard, and look askance at me as if I were a viper or a toad. I feel,
in truth, that though I am not one to wear the dainty trappings of a
court-gallant and bask in ladies’ smiles, I have it in me to approve
myself a tried man-at-arms on a stricken field, and make my name
dreaded by the foes of my country and liege-lord. But what avails it,
if I may never find a chance to show what I can do?”
At that very moment, as if in direct answer to the bitter query that
the fiery youth had unconsciously spoken aloud, a clear, sweet voice
rose from amid the clustering leaves, singing as follows:—
“The knight rode forth on his dapple-grey steed
Thro’ the sunshine of early morn;
And he was aware of a cry of woe
To his ear by the breezes borne.
“He turned his eye to the miry slough
That ran beside his way,
And he was aware of a leper man
Half-sunk in the mire that lay.
“His fingers were parting joint from joint,
His skin was yellow as corn;
More countless the sores in his rotting flesh
Than buds on the milk-white thorn.
“His hairless head was as bare and white
As the boughs of a blasted tree;
A fouler sight than that leper-man
No mortal eye could see.
“‘For Christ’s dear sake, Sir Knight,’ quoth he,
‘I pray thee reach thine hand,
And draw me forth, or ere I sink,
Unto the firmer land.’
“Nor quailed nor wavered that valiant knight;
‘For Christ’s dear sake let it be!’
And out he reached his strong right hand,
And the leper-man forth drew he.
“Then the leper-man’s face grew bright as the sun
When he smiles on the earth at morn;
And his voice was soft as the summer breeze
That stirs the ripening corn.
“And the knight, who had bowed not for prince or peer,
Bent low as to holy rood,
For well he wist ’twas our Lord Himself
Who there before him stood.
“‘I give thee My blessing,’ our Saviour said,
As the warrior bowed his knee;
‘What thou didst to the poor and outcast man,
Thou hast done it unto Me.
“‘Henceforth shall men call thee My chosen knight,
And best of all knights alive;
And all that thou doest from this day forth,
Whate’er it be, shall thrive.
“‘For dearer to Heaven is one pitying word
Than rich minsters or abbey-lands broad;
And the path of kindness to suffering man
Is the nearest way to God!’”