person by surprise, that way–why, I never meant to run; not in
earnest, I mean. I never thought of running in earnest; I only
wanted to have some fun, and when I saw Joan standing there, and
him threatening her, it was all I could do to restrain myself from
going there and just tearing the livers and lights out of him. I
wanted to do it bad enough, and if it was to do over again, I would!
If ever he comes fooling around me again, I’ll–”
“Oh, hush!” said the Paladin, breaking in with an air of disdain;
“the way you people talk, a person would think there’s something
heroic about standing up and facing down that poor remnant of a
man. Why, it’s nothing! There’s small glory to be got in facing him
down, I should say. Why, I wouldn’t want any better fun than to
face down a hundred like him. If he was to come along here now, I
would walk up to him just as I am now–I wouldn’t care if he had a
thousand axes–and say–”
And so he went on and on, telling the brave things he would say
and the wonders he would do; and the others put in a word from
time to time, describing over again the gory marvels they would do
if ever that madman ventured to cross their path again, for next
time they would be ready for him, and would soon teach him that
if he thought he could surprise them twice because he had
surprised them once, he would find himself very seriously
mistaken, that’s all.
And so, in the end, they all got back their self-respect; yes, and
even added somewhat to it; indeed when the sitting broke up they
had a finer opinion of themselves than they had ever had before.
Chapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned
THEY WERE peaceful and pleasant, those young and smoothly
flowing days of ours; that is, that was the case as a rule, we being
remote from the seat of war; but at intervals roving bands
approached near enough for us to see the flush in the sky at night
which marked where they were burning some farmstead or village,
and we all knew, or at least felt, that some day they would come
yet nearer, and we should have our turn. This dull dread lay upon
our spirits like a physical weight. It was greatly augmented a
couple of years after the Treaty of Troyes.
It was truly a dismal year for France. One day we had been over to
have one of our occasional pitched battles with those hated
Burgundian boys of the village of Maxey, and had been whipped,
and were arriving on our side of the river after dark, bruised and
weary, when we heard the bell ringing the tocsin. We ran all the
way, and when we got to the square we found it crowded with the
excited villagers, and weirdly lighted by smoking and flaring
torches.
On the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian priest,
who was telling the people new which made them weep, and rave,
and rage, and curse, by turns. He said our old mad King was dead,
and that now we and France and the crown were the property of an
English baby lying in his cradle in London. And he urged us to
give that child our allegiance, and be its faithful servants and
well-wishers; and said we should now have a strong and stable
government at last, and that in a little time the English armies
would start on their last march, and it would be a brief one, for all
that it would need to do would be to conquer what odds and ends
of our country yet remained under that rare and almost forgotten
rag, the banner of France.
The people stormed and raged at him, and you could see dozens of
them stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and
shake them at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to
look at; and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood