CHAPTER XXX.  WITH THE PRINCE.[i]

“Sanghurst dead!  Joan free! her father’s consent won!  I the Lord of Basildene!  Gaston, thou takest away my breath!  Art sure thou art not mocking me?”

“Art sure that thou art indeed thyself, my lord of Basildene?” was Gaston’s merry response, as he looked his brother over from head to foot with beaming face; “for, in sooth, I scarce should know thee for the brother I left behind —­ that wan and wasted creature, more like a corpse than a man.  The good Brothers have indeed done well by thee, Raymond.  Save that thou hast not lost thine old saintly look, which stamps thee as something different from the rest of us, I should scarce have thought it could be thee.  This year spent in thine own native clime has made a new man of thee!”

“In truth I think it has,” answered Raymond, who was indeed wonderfully changed from the time when Gaston had left him, rather more than ten months before.  “We had no snow and no cold in the winter gone by, and I was able to take the air daily, and I grew strong wondrous fast.  Thou hadst told me to be patient, to believe that all was well if I heard nothing from thee; and I strove to follow thy maxim, and that with good success.  I knew that thou wouldst not let me go on hoping if hope meant but a bitterer awaking.  I knew that silence must mean there was work which thou wert doing.  Many a time, as a white-winged vessel spread her sails for England’s shores, have I longed to step on board and follow thee across the blue water to see how thou wast faring; but then came always the thought that thou mightest be on thy way hither, and that thou wouldst chide me for having left these sheltering walls.  And so I stayed on day after day, and week after week, until months had rolled by; and I began to say within myself that, if thou camest not before the autumn storms, I must e’en take ship and follow thee, for I could wait no longer for news of thee —­ and her.”

“And here I am with news of her, and news that to me is almost better.  Raymond, I have not come hither alone.  The Prince and the flower of our English chivalry are here at Bordeaux this day.  The hollow truce is at an end.  Insult upon insult has been heaped upon England’s King by the King of France, the King of Navarre (who called himself our ally till he deserted us to join the French King, who will yet avenge upon him his foul murder of Charles of Spain), and the Count of Blois in Brittany.  England has been patient.  Edward has listened long to the pleadings of the Pope, and has not rushed into war; but he cannot wait patiently for ever.  They have roused the lion at last, and he will not slumber again till he has laid his foes in the dust.