“Bertrand,” I said, as the shadows lengthened, the soft dusk fell in the forest, and the witchery of the evening hour fell upon my heart, “I would that I could see this maiden of whom you speak, this Jeanne d’Arc of the village of Domremy.”

He turned and looked me full in the face; I saw his eyes glow and the colour deepen in his cheeks.

“You would not go to mock, friend Jean de Metz?” he said, for so I am generally named amongst my friends.

“Nay,” I answered truthfully, “there is no thought of mockery in my heart; yet I fain would see the Maid.”

He paused awhile in thought and then made answer: 

“At least we may ride together one day to Domremy; but whether or no we see the Maid will be according to the will of Heaven.”

CHAPTER II.  HOW I FIRST SAW THE MAID.

I did not forget my desire to see this maiden of Domremy, nor did Bertrand, I trow, forget the promise, albeit some days passed by ere we put our plan into action.

Bad news kept coming in to the little loyal township of Vaucouleurs.  There was no manner of doubt but that the English Regent, Bedford, was resolved to lose no more time, but seek to put beneath his iron heel the whole of the realm of France.  Gascony had been English so long that the people could remember nothing different than the rule of the Roy Outremer—­as of old they called him.  Now all France north of the Loire owned the same sway, and as all men know, the Duke of Burgundy was ally to the English, and hated the Dauphin with a deadly hatred, for the murder of his father—­for which no man can justly blame him.  True, his love for the English had cooled manifestly since that affair of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester and Jacquelaine of Brabant, in which as was natural, he took the part of his brother; but although the Duke of Bedford was highly indignant with Duke Humphrey, and gave him no manner of support in his rash expedition, yet the Duke of Burgundy resented upon the English what had been done, and although it did not drive him into the arms of the Dauphin, whom he hated worse, it loosened the bond between him and our foes, and we had hoped it might bring about a better state of things for our party.  Yet alas!—­this seemed as far as ever from being so; and the Burgundian soldiers still ravaged along our borders, and it seemed ofttimes as though we little loyal community of the Duchy of Bar would be swallowed up altogether betwixt the two encroaching foes.  So our hearts were often heavy and our faces grave with fear.

I noted in the manner of the Governor, whose guest I had now become, a great gravity, which in old days had not been there; for Robert de Baudricourt, as I remembered him, had ever been a man of merry mood, with a great laugh, a ready jest, and that sort of rough, bluff courage that makes light of trouble and peril.