aw not whence the shot came.

Once a great stone fell from a turret, and broke into dust at my feet,
and it is not my mind that a cannon-ball had loosened it.

Thus my life went by in dread and watchfulness. No more bitter penance
may man dree than was mine, to be near this devil, and have no power to
avenge my deadly quarrel. There were many heavy hearts in the town; for,
once it was taken, what man could deem his life safe, or what woman her
honour? But though they lay down and rose up in fear, and were devoured
by desire of revenge, theirs was no such thirst as mine.

So the days went on, and darkened towards the promised season of
Martinmas, but there dawned no light of hope. Now, on the Wednesday
before All Saints, I had clambered up into the tower of the Church of the
Jacobins, on the north-east of the city, whence there was a prospect far
and wide. With me were only two of the youngest of the fathers. I
looked down into the great forest of Pierrefonds, and up and down Oise,
and beheld the army of our enemies moving in divers ways. The banners of
the English and their long array were crossing the Duke of Burgundy's new
bridge of wood, that he had builded from Venette, and with them the men
of Jean de Luxembourg trooped towards Royaulieu. On the crest of their
bastille, over against our Pierrefonds Gate, matches were lighted and men
were watching in double guard, and the same on the other side of the
water, at the Gate Margny. Plainly our foes expected a rescue sent to us
of Compiegne by our party. But the forest, five hundred yards from our
wall, lay silent and peaceable, a sea of brown and yellow leaves.

Then, while the English and Burgundian men-at-arms, that had marched
south and east, were drawn up in order of battle away to the right
between wood and water, behold, trumpets sounded, faint enough, being far
off. Then there was a glitter of the pale sun on long lines of lance-
points, under the banners of French captains, issuing out from the
forest, over against the enemy. We who stood on the tower gazed long at
these two armies, which were marshalled orderly, with no more than a
bowshot and a half between them, and every moment we looked to see them
charge upon each other with the lance. Much we prayed to the Saints, for
now all our hope was on this one cast. They of Burgundy and of England
dismounted from their horses, for the English ever fight best on foot,
and they deemed that the knights