hear the clamour of the cruel
Jews: "Tolle hunc, et dimitte nobis Barabbam." {35} For Barabbas was a
robber. Howbeit on this matter, as on all, I humbly submit me to the
judgment of my superiors and to Holy Church.

Meantime the Maid rode from Lagny, now to Soissons, now to Senlis, now to
Crepy-en-Valois, and in Crepy she was when that befell which I am about
to relate.

CHAPTER XXVI--HOW, AND BY WHOSE DEVICE, THE MAID WAS TAKEN AT COMPIEGNE

"Verily and indeed the Maid is of wonderful excellence," quoth Father
Francois to me, in my chamber at the Jacobins, where I was healing of my
hurts.

"Any man may know that, who is in your company," the father went on
speaking.

"And how, good father?" I asked him; "sure I have caught none of her
saintliness."

"A saint I do not call you, but I scarce call you a Scot. For you are a
clerk."

"The Maid taught me none of my clergy, father, nor have I taught her any
of mine."

"She needs it not. But you are peaceful and gentle; you brawl not, nor
drink, nor curse . . . "

"Nay, father, with whom am I to brawl, or how should I curse in your good
company? Find you Scots so froward?"

"But now, pretending to be our friends, a band of them is harrying the
Sologne country . . . "

"They will be Johnstons and Jardines, and wild wood folk of Galloway," I
said. "These we scarce reckon Scots, but rather Picts, and half heathen.
And the Johnstons and Jardines are here belike, because they have made
Scotland over hot to hold them. We are a poor folk, but honest, let by
the clans of the Land Debatable and of Ettrick Forest, and the Border
freebooters, and the Galloway Picts, and Maxwells, and Glendinnings, and
the red-shanked, jabbering Highlanders and Islesmen, and some certain of
the Angus folk, and, maybe, a wild crew in Strathclyde."

"Yours, then, is a very large country?"

"About the bigness of France, or, may be, not so big. And the main part
of it, and the most lawful and learned, is by itself, in a sort, a
separate kingdom, namely Fife, whence I come myself. The Lothians, too,
and the shire of Ayr, if you except Carrick, are well known for the lands
of peaceful and sober men."

"Whence comes your great captain, Sir Hugh Kennedy?"

"There you name an honourable man-at-arms," I said, "the glory of
Scotland; and to show you I was right, he is none of your marchmen, or
Highlanders, but has lands in Ayrshire, and comes of a very honourable
house."

"It