right, that is well," said his uncle. "Our King cares little
what other theft thou mayst have made, but hath a horror at anything
like a breach of the cloister. And I warrant thee, thou hadst no great
treasure to bear thy charges?"

"Only a few pieces of silver," said the youth; "for to you, fair uncle,
I must make a free confession."

"Alas!" replied Le Balafre, "that is hard. Now, though I am never a
hoarder of my pay, because it doth ill to bear a charge about one in
these perilous times, yet I always have (and I would advise you to
follow my example) some odd gold chain, or bracelet, or carcanet,
that serves for the ornament of my person, and can at need spare a
superfluous link or two, or it may be a superfluous stone for sale, that
can answer any immediate purpose. But you may ask, fair kinsman, how you
are to come by such toys as this." (He shook his chain with complacent
triumph.) "They hang not on every bush--they grow not in the fields like
the daffodils, with whose stalks children make knights' collars. What
then?--you may get such where I got this, in the service of the good
King of France, where there is always wealth to be found, if a man has
but the heart to seek it at the risk of a little life or so."

"I understood," said Quentin, evading a decision to which he felt
himself as yet scarcely competent, "that the Duke of Burgundy keeps a
more noble state than the King of France, and that there is more honour
to be won under his banners--that good blows are struck there, and
deeds of arms done; while the most Christian King, they say, gains his
victories by his ambassadors' tongues."

"You speak like a foolish boy, fair nephew," answered he with the scar;
"and yet, I bethink me, when I came hither I was nearly as simple: I
could never think of a King but what I supposed him either sitting under
the high deas, and feasting amid his high vassals and Paladins, eating
blanc mange, with a great gold crown upon his head, or else charging at
the head of his troops like Charlemagne in the romaunts, or like Robert
Bruce or William Wallace in our own true histories, such as Barbour and
the Minstrel. Hark in thine ear, man--it is all moonshine in the water.
Policy--policy does it all. But what is policy, you will say? It is an
art this French King of ours has found out, to fight with other men's
swords, and to wage his soldiers out of other men's purses. Ah! it is
the wisest prince that ever put purple on his back