The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle (bill gates books to read .TXT) ๐
At this sudden outflame of wrath the two witnesses sank theirfaces on to their chests, and sat as men crushed. The Abbotturned his angry eyes away from them and bent them upon theaccused, who met his searching gaze with a firm and composedface.
"What hast thou to say, brother John, upon these weighty thingswhich are urged against you?"
"Little enough, good father, little enough," said the novice,speaking English with a broad West Saxon drawl. The brothers,who were English to a man, pricked up their ears at the sound ofthe homely and yet unfamiliar speech; but the Abbot flushed redwith anger, and struck his hand upon the oaken arm of his chair.
"What talk is this?" he cried. "Is this a tongue to be usedwithin the walls of an old and well-famed monastery? But graceand learning have ever gone hand in hand, and when one is lost itis needless to look for the other."
"I know not about that," said brother John. "I know only thatthe wo
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The face of the Gascon darkened, and his eyes flashed with resentment, โFor me,โ he said, โI care little for this war, and I find the life which I lead a very joyous and pleasant one. I will not go to Dax.โ
โNay, think again, Sir Claude,โ said Sir Nigel gently; โfor you have ever had the name of a true and loyal knight. Surely you will not hold back now when your master hath need of you.โ
โI will not go to Dax,โ the other shouted.
โBut your devoirโyour oath of fealty?โ
โI say that I will not go.โ
โThen, Sir Claude, I must lead the Company without you.โ
โIf they will follow,โ cried the Gascon with a sneer. โThese are not hired slaves, but free companions, who will do nothing save by their own good wills. In very sooth, my Lord Loring, they are ill men to trifle with, and it were easier to pluck a bone from a hungry bear than to lead a bowman out of a land of plenty and of pleasure.โ
โThen I pray you to gather them together,โ said Sir Nigel, โand I will tell them what is in my mind; for if I am their leader they must to Dax, and if I am not then I know not what I am doing in Auvergne. Have my horse ready, Alleyne; for, by St. Paul! come what may, I must be upon the homeward road ere mid-day.โ
A blast upon the bugle summoned the bowmen to counsel, and they gathered in little knots and groups around a great fallen tree which lay athwart the glade. Sir Nigel sprang lightly upon the trunk, and stood with blinking eye and firm lips looking down at the ring of upturned warlike faces.
โThey tell me, bowmen,โ said he, โthat ye have grown so fond of ease and plunder and high living that ye are not to be moved from this pleasant country. But, by Saint Paul! I will believe no such thing of you, for I can readily see that you are all very valiant men, who would scorn to live here in peace when your prince hath so great a venture before him. Ye have chosen me as a leader, and a leader I will be if ye come with me to Spain; and I vow to you that my pennon of the five roses shall, if God give me strength and life, be ever where there is most honor to be gained. But if it be your wish to loll and loiter in these glades, bartering glory and renown for vile gold and ill-gotten riches, then ye must find another leader; for I have lived in honor, and in honor I trust that I shall die. If there be forest men or Hampshire men amongst ye, I call upon them to say whether they will follow the banner of Loring.โ
โHereโs a Romsey man for you!โ cried a young bowman with a sprig of evergreen set in his helmet.
โAnd a lad from Alresford!โ shouted another.
โAnd from Milton!โ
โAnd from Burley!โ
โAnd from Lymington!โ
โAnd a little one from Brockenhurst!โ shouted a huge-limbed fellow who sprawled beneath a tree.
โBy my hilt! lads,โ cried Aylward, jumping upon the fallen trunk, โI think that we could not look the girls in the eyes if we let the prince cross the mountains and did not pull string to clear a path for him. It is very well in time of peace to lead such a life as we have had together, but now the war-banner is in the wind once more, and, by these ten finger-bones! if he go alone, old Samkin Aylward will walk beside it.โ
These words from a man as popular as Aylward decided many of the waverers, and a shout of approval burst from his audience.
โFar be it from me,โ said Sir Claude Latour suavely, โto persuade you against this worthy archer, or against Sir Nigel Loring; yet we have been together in many ventures, and perchance it may not be amiss if I say to you what I think upon the matter.โ
โPeace for the little Gascon!โ cried the archers. โLet every man have his word. Shoot straight for the mark, lad, and fair play for all.โ
โBethink you, then,โ said Sir Claude, โthat you go under a hard rule, with neither freedom nor pleasureโand for what? For sixpence a day, at the most; while now you may walk across the country and stretch out either hand to gather in whatever you have a mind for. What do we not hear of our comrades who have gone with Sir John Hawkwood to Italy? In one night they have held to ransom six hundred of the richest noblemen of Mantua. They camp before a great city, and the base burghers come forth with the keys, and then they make great spoil; or, if it please them better, they take so many horse-loads of silver as a composition; and so they journey on from state to state, rich and free and feared by all. Now, is not that the proper life for a soldier?โ
โThe proper life for a robber!โ roared Hordle John, in his thundering voice.
โAnd yet there is much in what the Gascon says,โ said a swarthy fellow in a weather-stained doublet; โand I for one would rather prosper in Italy than starve in Spain.โ
โYou were always a cur and a traitor, Mark Shaw,โ cried Aylward. โBy my hilt! if you will stand forth and draw your sword I will warrant you that you will see neither one nor the other.โ
โNay, Aylward,โ said Sir Nigel, โwe cannot mend the matter by broiling. Sir Claude, I think that what you have said does you little honor, and if my words aggrieve you I am ever ready to go deeper into the matter with you. But you shall have such men as will follow you, and you may go where you will, so that you come not with us. Let all who love their prince and country stand fast, while those who think more of a well-lined purse step forth upon the farther side.โ
Thirteen bowmen, with hung heads and sheepish faces, stepped forward with Mark Shaw and ranged themselves behind Sir Claude. Amid the hootings and hissings of their comrades, they marched off together to the Gasconโs hut, while the main body broke up their meeting and set cheerily to work packing their possessions, furbishing their weapons, and preparing for the march which lay before them. Over the Tarn and the Garonne, through the vast quagmires of Armagnac, past the swift-flowing Losse, and so down the long valley of the Adour, there was many a long league to be crossed ere they could join themselves to that dark war-cloud which was drifting slowly southwards to the line of the snowy peaks, beyond which the banner of England had never yet been seen.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
HOW THE ARMY MADE THE PASSAGE OF RONCESVALLES.
The whole vast plain of Gascony and of Languedoc is an arid and profitless expanse in winter save where the swift-flowing Adour and her snow-fed tributaries, the Louts, the Oloron and the Pau, run down to the sea of Biscay. South of the Adour the jagged line of mountains which fringe the skyline send out long granite claws, running down into the lowlands and dividing them into โgavesโ or stretches of valley. Hillocks grow into hills, and hills into mountains, each range overlying its neighbor, until they soar up in the giant chain which raises its spotless and untrodden peaks, white and dazzling, against the pale blue wintry sky.
A quiet land is thisโa land where the slow-moving Basque, with his flat biretta-cap, his red sash and his hempen sandals, tills his scanty farm or drives his lean flock to their hillside pastures. It is the country of the wolf and the isard, of the brown bear and the mountain-goat, a land of bare rock and of rushing water. Yet here it was that the will of a great prince had now assembled a gallant army; so that from the Adour to the passes of Navarre the barren valleys and wind-swept wastes were populous with soldiers and loud with the shouting of orders and the neighing of horses. For the banners of war had been flung to the wind once more, and over those glistening peaks was the highway along which Honor pointed in an age when men had chosen her as their guide.
And now all was ready for the enterprise. From Dax to St. Jean Pied-du-Port the country was mottled with the white tents of Gascons, Aquitanians and English, all eager for the advance. From all sides the free companions had trooped in, until not less than twelve thousand of these veteran troops were cantoned along the frontiers of Navarre. From England had arrived the princeโs brother, the Duke of Lancaster, with four hundred knights in his train and a strong company of archers. Above all, an heir to the throne had been born in Bordeaux, and the prince might leave his spouse with an easy mind, for all was well with mother and with child.
The keys of the mountain passes still lay in the hands of the shifty and ignoble Charles of Navarre, who had chaffered and bargained both with the English and with the Spanish, taking money from the one side to hold them open and from the other to keep them sealed. The mallet hand of Edward, however, had shattered all the schemes and wiles of the plotter. Neither entreaty nor courtly remonstrance came from the English prince; but Sir Hugh Calverley passed silently over the border with his company, and the blazing walls of the two cities of Miranda and Puenta de la Reyna warned the unfaithful monarch that there were other metals besides gold, and that he was dealing with a man to whom it was unsafe to lie. His price was paid, his objections silenced, and the mountain gorges lay open to the invaders. From the Feast of the Epiphany there was mustering and massing, until, in the first week of Februaryโthree days after the White Company joined the armyโthe word was given for a general advance through the defile of Roncesvalles. At five in the cold winterโs morning the bugles were blowing in the hamlet of St. Jean Pied-du-Port, and by six Sir Nigelโs Company, three hundred strong, were on their way for the defile, pushing swiftly in the dim light up the steep curving road; for it was the princeโs order that they should be the first to pass through, and that they should remain on guard at the further end until the whole army had emerged from the mountains. Day was already breaking in the east, and the summits of the great peaks had turned rosy red, while the valleys still lay in the shadow, when they found themselves with the cliffs on either hand and the long, rugged pass stretching away before them.
Sir Nigel rode his great black warhorse at the head of his archers, dressed in full armor, with Black Simon bearing his banner behind him, while Alleyne at his bridle-arm carried his blazoned shield and his well-steeled ashen spear. A proud and happy man was the knight, and many a time he turned in his saddle to look at the long column of bowmen who swung swiftly along behind him.
โBy Saint Paul! Alleyne,โ said he, โthis pass is a very perilous place, and I would that the King of Navarre had held it against us, for it would have been a very honorable venture had it fallen to us to win a passage. I have heard the minstrels sing of
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