WE WERE twenty-five strong, and well equipped. We rode in double file,
Joan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz
at the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear. In two
or three hours we should be in the enemy’s country, and then none
would venture to desert. By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and
execrations from different points along the line, and upon inquiry found
that six of our men were peasants who had never ridden a horse before,
and were finding it very difficult to stay in their saddles, and
moreover were now beginning to suffer considerable bodily torture. They
had been seized by the governor at the last moment and pressed into the
service to make up the tale, and he had placed a veteran alongside of
each with orders to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he
tried to desert.
These poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could, but their
physical miseries were become so sharp by this time that they were
obliged to give them vent. But we were within the enemy’s country now,
so there was no help for them, they must continue the march, though
Joan said that if they chose to take the risk they might depart.
They preferred to stay with us. We modified our pace now, and moved
cautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their sorrows to
themselves and not get the command into danger with their curses and
lamentations.
Toward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all but the sentries
were sound asleep in spite of the cold ground and the frosty air.
I woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying sleep that at first my
wits were all astray, and I did not know where I was nor what had been
happening. Then my senses cleared, and I remembered. As I lay there
thinking over the strange events of the past month or two the thought
came into my mind, greatly surprising me, that one of Joan’s prophecies
had failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who were to join us at
the eleventh hour? By this time, you see, I had gotten used to expecting
everything Joan said to come true. So, being disturbed and troubled by
these thoughts, I opened my eyes. Well, there stood the Paladin leaning
against a tree and looking down on me! How often that happens; you think
of a person, or speak of a person, and there he stands before you, and
you not dreaming he is near. It looks as if his being near is really the
thing that makes you think of him, and not just an accident, as people
imagine. Well, be that as it may, there was the Paladin, anyway, looking
down in my face and waiting for me to wake. I was ever so glad to see
him, and jumped up and shook him by the hand, and led him a little way
from the camp—he limping like a cripple—and told him to sit down, and
said:
“Now, where have you dropped down from? And how did you happen to light
in this place? And what do the soldier-clothes mean? Tell me all about
it.”
He answered:
“I marched with you last night.”
“No!” (To myself I said, “The prophecy has not all failed—half of it
has come true.”) “Yes, I did. I hurried up from Domremy to join, and was
within a half a minute of being too late. In fact, I was too late, but I
begged so hard that the governor was touched by my brave devotion to
my country’s cause—those are the words he used—and so he yielded, and
allowed me to come.”
I thought to myself, this is a lie, he is one of those six the governor
recruited by force at the last moment; I know it, for Joan’s prophecy
said he would join at the eleventh hour, but not by his own desire. Then
I said aloud:
“I am glad you came; it is a noble cause, and one should not sit at home
in times like these.”
“Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid
in the clouds when the storm calls it.”
“That is the right talk. It sounds like you.”
That pleased him.
“I’m glad you know me. Some don’t. But they will, presently. They will
know me well enough before I get done with this war.”
“That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you
will make yourself conspicuous.”
He was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder.
He said:
“If I know myself—and I think I do—my performances in this campaign will
give you occasion more than once to remember those words.”
“I were a fool to doubt it. That I know.”
“I shall not be at my best, being but a common soldier; still, the
country will hear of me. If I were where I belong; if I were in the
place of La Hire, or Saintrailles, or the Bastard of Orleans—well, I
say nothing. I am not of the talking kind, like Noel Rainguesson and his
sort, I thank God. But it will be something, I take it—a novelty in this
world, I should say—to raise the fame of a private soldier above theirs,
and extinguish the glory of their names with its shadow.”
“Why, look here, my friend,” I said, “do you know that you have hit out
a most remarkable idea there? Do you realize the gigantic proportions
of it? For look you; to be a general of vast renown, what is that?
Nothing—history is clogged and confused with them; one cannot keep their
names in his memory, there are so many. But a common soldier of
supreme renown—why, he would stand alone! He would the be one moon in a
firmament of mustard-seed stars; his name would outlast the human race!
My friend, who gave you that idea?”
He was ready to burst with happiness, but he suppressed betrayal of it
as well as he could. He simply waved the compliment aside with his hand
and said, with complacency:
“It is nothing. I have them often—ideas like that—and even greater ones.
I do not consider this one much.”
“You astonish me; you do, indeed. So it is really your own?”
“Quite. And there is plenty more where it came from”—tapping his head
with his finger, and taking occasion at the same time to cant his morion
over his right ear, which gave him a very self-satisfied air—“I do not
need to borrow my ideas, like Noel Rainguesson.”
“Speaking of Noel, when did you see him last?”
“Half an hour ago. He is sleeping yonder like a corpse. Rode with us
last night.”
I felt a great upleap in my heart, and said to myself, now I am at rest
and glad; I will never doubt her prophecies again. Then I said aloud:
“It gives me joy. It makes me proud of our village. There is not keeping
our lion-hearts at home in these great times, I see that.”
“Lion-heart! Who—that baby? Why, he begged like a dog to be let off.
Cried, and said he wanted to go to his mother. Him a lion-heart!—that
tumble-bug!”
“Dear me, why I supposed he volunteered, of course. Didn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, he volunteered the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he
found I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let
him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement.
Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran
there, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and
he begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the
governor allowed me to join, but wouldn’t let Noel off, because he was
disgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he’ll
do the King’s service; he’ll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a
pygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!”
“Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and
disappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow.”
The Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said:
“I don’t see how you can talk like that, I’m sure I don’t. I don’t see
how you could have got such a notion. I don’t dislike him, and I’m not
saying these things out of prejudice, for I don’t allow myself to have
prejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him
from the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults,
and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true
enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they’ll bear inspection—I have that
idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail
and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn’t the
saddle hurt me? Pooh—I was as much at home in it as if I had been born
there. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those
old soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything
like it. But him—why, they had to hold him on, all the time.”
An odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin
unconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and
limped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse.
At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm
in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite,
and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.
If this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness
seemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind
it; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work
of Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and
perfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light
heart had to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the
Paladin had only needed development in order to meet its requirements,
consequently the development was taken in hand and diligently attended
to and looked after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect
and damage of far more important concerns. The result was an unqualified
success. Noel prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else’s;
the Paladin preferred anybody’s to Noel’s. The big fellow was often seen
with the little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is
often seen with the gnat.
With the first opportunity, I had a talk with Noel. I welcomed him to
our expedition, and said:
“It was fine and brave of you to volunteer, Noel.”
His eye twinkled, and he answered:
“Yes, it was rather fine, I think. Still, the credit doesn’t all belong
to me; I had help.”
“Who helped you?”
“The governor.”
“How?”
“Well, I’ll tell you the whole thing. I came up from Domremy to see the
crowds and the general show, for I hadn’t ever had any experience of
such things, of course, and this was a great opportunity; but I hadn’t
any mind to volunteer. I overtook the Paladin on the road and let him
have my company the rest of the way, although he did not want it and
said so; and while we were gawking and blinking in the glare of the
governor’s torches they seized us and four more and added us to the
escort, and that is really how I came to volunteer. But, after all, I
wasn’t sorry, remembering how dull life would have been in the village
without the Paladin.”
“How did he feel about it? Was he satisfied?”
“I think he was glad.”
“Why?”
“Because he said he wasn’t. He was taken by surprise, you see, and it is
not likely that he could tell the truth without preparation. Not that
he would have prepared, if he had had the chance, for I do not think he
would. I am not charging him with that. In the same space of time that
he could prepare to speak the truth, he could also prepare to lie;
besides, his judgment would be cool then, and would warn him against
fooling with new methods in an emergency. No, I am sure he was glad,
because he said he wasn’t.”
“Do you think he was very glad?”
“Yes, I know he was. He begged like a slave, and bawled for his mother.
He said his health was delicate, and he didn’t know how to ride a horse,
and he knew he couldn’t outlive the first march. But really he wasn’t
looking as delicate as he was feeling. There was a cask of wine there,
a proper lift for four men. The governor’s temper got afire, and he
delivered an oath at him that knocked up the dust where it struck the
ground, and told him to shoulder that cask or he would carve him to
cutlets and send him home in a basket. The Paladin did it, and that
secured his promotion to a privacy in the escort without any further
debate.”
“Yes, you seem to make it quite plain that he was glad to join—that is,
if your premises are right that you start from. How did he stand the
march last night?”
“About as I did. If he made the more noise, it was the privilege of his
bulk. We stayed in our saddles because we had help. We are equally lame
to-day, and if he likes to sit down, let him; I prefer to stand.”