forget himself, and
to be manly; but they had escaped detection, and they knew plenty of
young Englishmen, and many more Burgundians and Gascons, who had plunged
far deeper into mischief, and thought it no disgrace, but rather held
that there was some special dispensation for the benefit of warriors.

Malcolm and Ralf were riding with a party of these young men. King Henry
had consented to make his first day's journey as far as Corbeil in a
litter, since only there he was to meet the larger number of his troops,
whom Bedford and Warwick were assembling. James was riding close beside
him, with his immediate attendants; and the two youths, not being needed,
had joined their comrades with the advanced guard of the escort.

It was always a fiction maintained by Henry, that he was marching in a
friendly country; plunder was strictly forbidden, and everything was to
be paid for; but unfortunately, the peasantry on his way never realized
this, and the soldiery often took care they should not. Therefore, when
the advanced guard came to the village that had been marked out for their
halt, instead of finding provisions and forage to be purchased, they met
with only bare walls, and a few stray cats; and while storming and raving
between hunger and disappointment, a report came from somewhere that the
inhabitants had fled, and driven off their cattle to another village some
four miles off, in the woods, on the heights above. Of course, they must
be taught reason. It was true that the men-at-arms, who were under the
command of Sir Christopher Kitson and Sir William Trenton, were obliged
to abide where they were, much as Kitson growled at being unable to
procure a draught of wine for Trenton, whom he had been nursing for weeks
under intermitting fever, caught at Meaux; but the young gentlemen were
well pleased to show themselves under no Yorkshireman's orders, and
galloped off _en masse_ to procure refreshment for their horses and
themselves, further stimulated by the report that the Armagnacs had left
a sick man behind them there, who might be a valuable prisoner.

By and by, a woodland path brought the disorderly party, about forty in
number, including their servants and the ruffians who always followed
whenever plunder was to be scented, out upon a pretty French village of
the better class, built round a green shaded with chestnuts, under which,
sure enough, were hay-carts, cows, sheep, and goats, and their owners,
taking r