he Comte de Clermont deserted us so shamefully on the day
of the Battle of the Herrings. No sooner did this doubt come into my
mind, than I leaped from my bed, attired myself, and went forth to the
quarters of the Scots under Sir Christian Chambers. Little need I had to
tell my errand, for they that met me guessed who I was, because, indeed,
Robin and I favoured each other greatly in face and bodily presence.

It was even as I had deemed: my dear brother and friend and tutor of old
days had died, charging back upon the English who pursued us, and
fighting by the side of Pothon de Xaintrailles. All that day, and in the
week which followed, my thought was ever upon him; a look in a stranger's
face, a word on another's lips, by some magic of the mind would bring my
brother almost visibly before me, ay, among the noise of swords on mail,
and the screaming of arrows, and of great cannon-balls.

If I heard ill news, it was no more than I looked for; but better news,
as it seemed, I also heard, though, in my sorrow, I marked it little. For
the soldiers were lamenting the loss of their famed gunner, not John the
Lorrainer, but one who had come to them, they said, now some weeks agone,
in the guise of a cordelier, though he did not fight in that garb, but in
common attire, and ever wore his vizor down, which men deemed strange.
Whither he had gone, or how disappeared, they knew not, for he had not
been with those who yesterday attacked St. Loup.

"He could never thole the thought of the Blessed Maid," said Allan
Rutherford, "but would tell all that listened how she was a brain-sick
wench, or a witch, and under her standard he would never fight. He even
avowed to us that she had been a chamber-wench of an inn in Neufchateau,
and there had learned to back a horse, and many a worse trick," which was
a lie devised by the English and them of Burgundy. But, go where he
would, or how he would, I deemed it well that Brother Thomas and I (for
of a surety it was Brother Thomas) were not to meet in Orleans.

Concerning the English in this wonderful adventure of the siege, I have
never comprehended, nor do I now know, wherefore they bore them as they
did. That they sallied not out on the trains which the Maid led and
brought into the town, a man might set down to mere cowardice and faint
heart--they fearing to fight against a witch, as they deemed her. In
later battles, when she had won so many a victory, they may well have
feared