Now, however, we often saw him sunk in some deep reverie, his chin upon his hand, his eyes gazing full into the blaze of the leaping fire of logs, which always flamed upon the hearth in the great hall, where the most part of his time was spent.  He would go hunting or hawking by day, or ride hither and thither through the town, looking into matters there, or sit to listen to the affairs of the citizens or soldiers as they were brought before him; and at such times his manner would be much as it had ever been of yore—­quick, almost rough, yet not unkindly—­whilst the shrewd justice he always meted out won the respect of the people, and made him a favourite in the town.

But when the evening fell, and the day’s work was done, and after supper we sat in the hall, with the dogs slumbering around us, talking of any news which might have come in, either of raids by the roving Burgundians, or the advance of the English towards Orleans, then these darker moods would fall upon him; and once when he had sat for well-nigh an hour without moving, his brow drawn and furrowed, and his eyes seemingly sunk deeper in his head, Bertrand leaned towards me and whispered in mine ear: 

“He is thinking of the Maid of Domremy!”

De Baudricourt could not have heard the words, yet when he spoke a brief while later, it almost seemed as though he might have done so.

“Nephew,” he said, lifting his head abruptly and gazing across at us, “tell me again the words of that prophecy of Merlin’s, spoken long, long ago, of which men whisper in these days, and of which you did speak to me awhile back.”

“Marry, good mine uncle, the prophecy runs thus,” answered Bertrand, rising and crossing over towards the great fire before which his kinsman sat, “’That France should be destroyed by the wiles of a woman, and saved and redeemed by a maiden.’”

The bushy brows met in a fierce scowl over the burning eyes; his words came in a great burst of indignation and scorn.

“Ay, truly—­he spake truly—­the wise man—­the wizard!  A woman to be the ruin of the kingdom!  Ay, verily, and has it not been so?  Who but that wicked Queen Isabeau is at the bottom of the disgraceful Treaty of Troyes, wherein France sold herself into the hands of the English?  Did she not repudiate her own son?  Did not her hatred burn so fiercely against him that she was ready to tarnish her own good fame and declare him illegitimate, rather than that he should succeed his father as King of France?  Did she not give her daughter to the English King in wedlock, that their child might reign over this fair realm?  Truly has the kingdom been destroyed by the wiles of a woman!  But I vow it will take more than the strength of any maiden to save and redeem it from the woes beneath which it lies crushed!”

“In sooth it doth seem so,” answered Bertrand with grave and earnest countenance, “but yet with the good God nothing is impossible.  Hath He not said before this that He doth take of the mean and humble to confound the great of the earth?  Did not the three hundred with Gideon overcome the hosts of the Moabites?  Did not the cake of barley bread overturn the tent and the camp of the foe?”