hall have it, lad! The King came in to-day--late is better than
never--and to-morrow we go with the Maid, to give these pock-puddings a
taste of Scottish steel."

"And the Maid, where is she, Randal?"

"She lodges beyond the Paris gate, at the windmill, wherefrom she drove
the English some days agone."

"Wherefore not in the town?" I asked.

"Mayhap because she likes to be near her work, and would that all were of
her mind. And mayhap she loves not the sight of the wenches whom she was
wont to drive from the camp, above all now that she has broken the Holy
Sword of Fierbois, smiting a lass with the flat of the blade."

"I like not the omen," said I.

"Freits follow them that freits fear," said Randal, in our country
speech. "And the Maid is none of these. 'Well it was,' said she, 'that
I trusted not my life to a blade that breaks so easily,' and, in the next
skirmish, she took a Burgundian with her own hands, and now wears his
sword, which is a good cut and thrust piece. But come," he cried, "if
needs you must see the Maid, you have but to walk to the Paris gate, and
so to the windmill hard by. And your horse I will stable with our own,
and for quarters, we living Scots men-at-arms fare as well as the dead
kings of France, for to-night we lie in the chapel."

I dismounted, and he gave me an embrace, and, holding me at arms'-length,
laughed--

"You never were a tall man, Norman, but you look sound, and whole, and
tough for your inches, like a Highlandman's dirk. Now be off on your
errand, and when it is done, look for me yonder at the sign of 'The
Crane,'" pointing across the parvise to a tavern, "for I keep a word to
tell in your lug that few wot of, and that it will joy you to hear. To-
morrow, lad, we go in foremost."

And so, smiling, he took my horse and went his way, whistling, "Hey,
tuttie, tattie!"

Verily his was the gladdest face I had seen, and his words put some heart
into me, whereas, of the rest save our own Scots, I liked neither what I
saw, nor what I heard.

I had but to walk down the street, through elbowing throngs of grooms,
pages, men-at-arms, and archers, till I found the Paris Gate, whence the
windmill was plain to behold. It was such an old place as we see in
Northern France, plain, strong, with red walls which the yellow mosses
stain, and with high grey roofs. The Maid's banner, with the Holy Dove,
and the Sacred Name, drooped above the gateway, and beside the door, on
the