“And how send you the letter?”

“By the bearer of the Prince’s letters to the King.  Sir Richard Ferrars knows him, and will give them into his charge.  So farewell, Gaston, keep quiet, and weary not yourself with my equipment.”

With these words he left the tent, and Gaston, shaking his head, and throwing himself back on his deer-skins, exclaimed, “Tender and true, brave and loving!  I know not what to make of Eustace Lynwood.  His spirit is high as a Paladin’s of old, of that I never doubted, yet is his hand as deft at writing as a clerk’s, and his heart as soft as a woman’s.  How he sighed and wept the livelong night, when he thought none could hear him!  Well, Sir Reginald was a noble Knight, and is worthily mourned, but where is the youth who would not have been more uplifted at his own honours, than downcast at his loss; and what new-made Knight ever neglected his accoutrements to write sad tidings to his sister-in-law?  But,” he continued, rising again, “Guy, bring me here the gilded spurs you will find yonder.  The best were, I know, buried with Sir Reginald, and methought there was something amiss with one rowel of the other.  So it is.  Speed to Maitre Ferry, the armourer, and bid him come promptly.”

“And lie you still on your couch meanwhile, Master d’Aubricour,” said Guy, “or there will soon be another Squire missing among the Lances of Lynwood.”

“I marvel at you, d’Aubricour,” said Leonard, looking up from a pasty, which he was devouring with double relish, to make up for past privations, “I marvel that you should thus weary yourself, with your fresh wound, and all for nought.”

“Call you our brave young banneret nought?  Shame on thee!  All England should be proud of him, much more his friend and companion.”

“I wish Eustace Lynwood well with all my heart,” said Leonard, “but I see not why he is to be honoured above all others.  Yourself, Gaston, so much older, so perfect in all exercises, you who fought with this Frenchman too, of whom they make so much, the Prince might as well have knighted you, as Eustace, who would have been down in another moment had not I made in to the rescue.  Methinks if I had been the Prince, I would have inquired upon whom knighthood would sit the best.”

“And the choice would have been the same,” said Gaston.  “Not only was Sir Eustace the captor of Messire Bertrand, whereas my luck was quite otherwise; but what would knighthood have availed the wandering landless foreigner, as you courteously term me, save to fit me for the leadership of a band of routiers, and unfit me for the office of an Esquire, which I do, as you say, understand indifferently well.”

“Is it not the same with him?” cried Leonard.  “He does not own a palm’s breadth of land, and for gold, all he will ever possess is on those broken spurs of his brother’s.”

“Listen to me, Leonard,” said Gaston.  “Rich or poor, Sir Eustace is the only fit leader of the Lances till the little boy is of age, but this he could not be without knightly rank.  Even in this campaign, when I might have taken the command, I being disabled for the present, it must have devolved on him, who might not have been so readily obeyed.”