have the accoutrements of one of
the Englishmen who lie in ward, and let me ride with your band at
daybreak to-morrow. It is easy to tell some feigned tale, when you ride
back without me."

"You will not ride into Rouen in English guise? They will straightway
hang you for a spy, and therein is little honour."

"My purpose is some deal subtler," I said, with a laugh, "but let me keep
my own counsel."

"So be it," said he, "a wilful man must have his way. And now I drink to
your better wisdom, and may you escape that rope on which your heart
seems to be set!"

I grasped his hand on it, and by point of day we were riding out
seawards. We made an onslaught on a village, burned a house or twain,
and seized certain wains of hay, so, in the confusion, I slipped forward,
and rode alone into a little wood. There I clad myself in English guise,
having carried the gear in a wallet on my saddle-bow, and so pushed on,
till at nightfall I came to a certain little fishing-village. There,
under cover of the dark, I covenanted with a fisherman to set me across
the Channel, I feigning to be a deserter who was fleeing from the English
army, for fear of the Maid.

"I would well that I had to carry all the sort of you," said the boat-
master, for I had offered him my horse, and a great reward in money, part
down, and the other part to be paid when I set foot in England. Nor did
he make any tarrying, but, taking his nets on board, as if he would be
about his lawful business, set sail, with his two sons for a crew. The
east wind served us to a miracle, and, after as fair a passage as might
be, they landed me under cloud of night not far from the great port of
Winchelsea.

That night I slept none, but walking fast and warily, under cover of a
fog, I fetched a compass about, and ended by walking into the town of Rye
by the road from the north. Here I went straight to the best inn of the
place, and calling aloud for breakfast, I bade the drawer bring mine host
to me instantly. For, at Louviers, we were so well served by spies, the
country siding with us rather than with the English, that I knew how a
company of the Earl of Warwick's men was looked for in Winchelsea to sail
when they had a fair wind for Rouen.

Mine host came to me in a servile English fashion, and asked me what I
would?

"First, a horse," said I, "for mine dropped dead last night, ten miles
hence on the north road, in your marshes, God damn them, and you may