mounting-stone, sat the boy, Louis des Coutes, her page. He was a
lad of fifteen years, merry enough of his nature, and always went gaily
clad, and wearing his yellow hair long. But now he sat thoughtful on the
mounting-stone, cutting at a bit of wood with his dagger.

"So you have come to take your part," he said, when we had saluted each
the other. "Faith, I hope you bring good luck with you, and more joy to
my mistress, for we need all that you can bring."

"Why, what ails all of you?" I asked. "I have seen never a hopeful face,
save that of one of my own countrymen. You are not afraid of a crack on
your curly pate, are you?"

"Curly or not, my head knows better than to knock itself against Paris
walls. They are thick, and high, and the windows of every house on the
wall are piled with stones, to drop upon us. And I know not well why,
but things go ill with us. I never saw Her," and he nodded towards the
open gateway, "so out of comfort. When there is fighting toward, she is
like herself, and she is the first to rise and the last to lie down. But,
in all our waiting here, she has passed many an hour praying in the
chapel, where the dead kings lie, yet her face is not glad when she comes
forth. It was wont to shine strangely, when she had been praying, at the
chapel in Couldray, while we were at Chinon. But now it is otherwise.
Moreover, we saw Paris very close to-day, and there were over many red
crosses of St. George upon the walls. And to-morrow is the Feast of the
Blessed Virgin, no day for bloodshed."

"Faint heart!" said I (and, indeed, after the assault on Paris, Louis des
Coutes went back, and rode no more with the maid). "The better the day,
the better the deed! May I go within?"

"I will go with you," he said, "for she said that you would come, and
bade me bring you to her."

We entered the gateway together, and before us lay the square of the
farm, strewn with litter, and from within the byre we heard the milk ring
in the pails, for the women were milking the cows. And there we both
stood astonished, for we saw the Maid as never yet I had seen her. She
was bareheaded, but wore the rest of her harness, holding in her hand a
measure of corn. All the fowls of the air seemed to be about her,
expecting their meat. But she was not throwing the grain among them, for
she stood as still as a graven image, and, wonderful to tell, a dove was
perched on her shoulder, and a mavis was nestling in