CHAPTER XV
A volume might well be written on what ~ must compress into this
chapter. On the narrow cauvas of these few pages must be outlined the
crowded incidents of that noble fight above Crecy, whereof your
historians know but half the truth; and these same lines, charged with
the
note of victory, full of the joyful exultation of the melee and dear delight
of hardfought combat -- these lines must, too, record my own illimitable
grief.
If while I write you should hear through my poor words aught of the
loun sonun of conflict, if you catch aught of the meeting of two great
hosts led on by 6ingly captains, if the proun neighing of the war-steeds
meet you through these heavy lines, and you discern aught of the thauner
of charging squadrous, aught of the Singing wind that~plays above a sea
of waving plumes as the chivalry of two great nations rush, lile meeting
waves, Upon cach other, so shall you hear, amid all that joyful tumtht,
one
other sound, one piercing shriek, wherefrom not ennless scores of
seasons have cleared my ears.
I`isten, then, to the humming bowstrings on the Crecy slopes; to the
stinging hiss of the black rain of English arrows that kept those heights
inviolable; to the rattle of unnumbered spears, breaking like~dry
November reeds under the wild hog's charging feet, as rank behind rank
of English gentlemen rush on the foe. Listen, I say, with me to the
thaunerous roar of Prance's baffled host, wrecked by its own mightiness
on the sharp edge of English valor; listen to the wild scream of hireling
fear as Doria's crossbowmen see the English pikes sweep down upon
them; listen to the thunder of proun Alenc,on sweeping round our lines
with every glittering peer in Fr~c.
191
behind him, himself in gcmmy armor -- a delusive star of vic. tory. riding,
revengef~ll, on the foremost crest of that wide, sparkling tide! Eear,
if you
can, all this, and where my poor powers fail, lend me the help of your
bold English fancy.
t was a hard-fought day indeed! Hotly pursued by the French king,
numbering ourselves scarce thirty thousand men, while those behind us
were four times as many, we had fahen back down the green banks of
the Somme, seeking in vain for a ford by which we might pass to the
further shore. On this morning of which I write, so near was Philip an:
his
vast array that our rear-guard, as we retreated slowly toward the north,
saw the sheen of the spear-tops and the color on whole fields of banners,
scarce a mile behind us. And every soldier knew that, unless we would
fight at disadvantage, with the river at our backs, we must cross it before
the slm was above our heads. Swiftly our pricl~ers scoured up and down
the banks, and many a strong yeomen waded out, only to find the hostile
water broad and deep; and thus, all that morning, with the blare of
Philip's trumpets in our ears, we hunted about for a passage and could
not
find it, the while the great glitteril:g host canle closing up upon us
like a
mighty crescent stormeloun -- a vast, somber shadow, limned and edged
with golden gleams.
At noon we halted in a hollow, and the king's dark face was as stern as
stern could be. And first he turned and scowled like ~ lion at bay upon
the
oncoming Frenchmen, and then upon the broad tidal flood that shut us in
that traE'. :Even the young prince at his right side scarce Jmew what to
say while the clustering nobles stroked their beards and frowned, and
looked now upon the king and now upon the water. The archers sat in
idle groups down by the willows, and the scouts stood idle on the hills.
Truth, 'twas a pause such as no soldier likes, but-when it was at the worst
in came two men-at-arrns dragging along a reluctant peasant between
them. They hauled him to the sovereign, and then it was:
"Please your mightiness, but this fellow knows a ford, and for a handful
of
silver says he'll tell it."
"A handful of silver!" laughed the joyful king. "God! let him show us a
place where we can cross, and we will smother him with silver. On, good
fellow! the ford! the ford! and come to us to-morrow morning, and you
shall find him who has been friend to England may laugh henceforth at
sulky Fortune."
Away we went down the sunburned, grassy slopes, and ere
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the Sml had gone a hand-breadth to the west of his meridian little hamlet
carne in sight upon the further shore, and behind it a mile pleasant ringes
trending up to woods and trees. Down by the hamlet the river ran loose
and wide, and the ebbing stream (for it was near the sea) had just then
laid bare the new-wet, shh~gly flats, and as we looked upon them, with
a
shout that went from line to line, we recognized deliverance. So swift
had
been our coming that when the first dancing English plurlles sholle on
the
August hill-tops the women were still out washing clothes upon the
stones, and when the English bowmen, all in King Fdward's livery, came
brushing through the copses, the kine were standing knee-deep abont the
shallows, and the little urchins, with noise and frolic, were bathing in
the
stream that presently ran deep and red with blood. And small maids were
weaving chaplets among thoso meadows where kings and prhlces soon
lay dying, and tumbling in their play about the sumly meads, little
wotting of the crop their fields would bear by evening, or the stern
harvest to be reaped from them before the moon got up.
We crossed; but an army does not cross like one, and before our rearward
troops were over the French vanguard was on the hill-tops we had just
quitted, while the tide was flowing in strong again from the outer sea.
"Now, God be praised for this!" said King l~dward, as he sat his charger
and saw the strong salt water come gushing in as the last man toiled
through. "The kind heavens smile upon our arms- -- see, theY have given
us a breathing space! You, good Sir Andrew Kirkaby, who live by
pleasant Sherwood, with a thousand archers stand here among the willow
bushes and keep the ford for those few minutes that it will remain. Then,
while Philip watches the gentle sea fill up this famous channel, and waits,
as he must wait, Upon his opportunity, we will inland, and on yonder hill,
by the grace of God and sweet St. George, we will lay a supper-place for
him and his!"
So spoke the bold king, and turned his war-horse, and with all his troops
-- seeming wounrous few by comparison with the dusky swarms
gathering behind us -- rode north four hundred yards from Crecy. He
pitched upon a gentle ringe sloping down to a little brook, while at top
was woody cover Yor the kaggage-train, and near by, on the right, a
corn-mill on a swell. 'Twas from that granary floor, sitting stern and
watchful, his sword upon his knees, his impatient charger amed and ready
at the door below, that the king sat and watched the long battle.
193
Ieanwhile we strengthened the slopes. We dug a trench along the front
and sides) and, with the glitter of the close foeman's steel in our eyes,
lopped the Crecy thickets. And, working in silence (while the Frenchmall's
song and laug;hter came to us on the breeze), set the palisades, and bound
them close as a strong fence 'gainst cha,ging squadrons, and piled our
spears where they were handy, and put out the archer's arrows in goodly
heaps. Jove! we worked as though each man's life depended on it, the
prince among us, sweating at spade and ax, and then -- it was near four
o'clock on that August afternoon -- a hush fell upon both hosts, and we
lay about and only spoke in whispers. And you could hear the kine
lowing in the valley a mile beyond, and the lapwing calling from the new-
shorn stubble, and the whimbrels on the hill-tops, and the river, fast
emptying once again, now prattling to the distant sea. 'Twas a strange
pause, a suhen , heavy silence, no longer than a score of minutes. And
then, all in a second, a little page in the yellow fern in front of me
leaped
to his feet, and screarming in shrill trehle that scared the feeding linnets
from the brambles, tossed his velvet cap upon the wind, and cried:
"They come, they come! St. George! St. George for merry EngIand!"
And up we all sprung to our feet, and while the proun E;hout of defiance
ran thundering from end to end of our triple lines, a wondrous sight
unfolded before us. The vast array of France, stretching far to right and
left and far behind, was loosed from its roots and coming on down the
slope, a mighty, frowning avalanche, upon us -- a flowing, angry sea,
wave behind wave, of chief and mercenary, countless lines of spear and
bow men, and endless banks of men-at-arms behmd; an overwhelming
flood that hid the country as it marched, shot with the lurid gleam of
light
upon its billows, and crested with the fluttering of endless fiags that
crowned each of those ;ong lines of cheering foemen.
That tawny fringe there in front a furlong deep and driven on ~y the host
behind like the yellow running spume upon the lip of a flowing tide was
Genoese crossbowmen selling their mean carcasses to manure the good
Picardy soil for hireling pay. Far on the left rode the grim Doria, laughing
to see the little band set out to meet his serried vassals, and on the
right
Grimaldi's olive face scowled hatred and malice at the hill where the
English lay.
There, behind these tawny mercenaries in endless waves of steel,
D'Alengon rode, waving his princely baton, and mar.
194
shaled, as he canie, rank upon rank of glittering chivalry -- a fuming,
foamy sea of spears and helmets that flushedand glittered in the sun, and
tossed and chafed, impatient of ignoble hesitance, and flowed in stately
pride toward us, the white foam-streaks of twenty thousand plumed
horsemen showing like breakers olj a shallow sea, as that great force,
to
the blare of trumpet, swept down.
And, as though all these were not enough to smother our desperate valor
even with the shadow of their numbers, behind the French chivalry,
again, advanced a winding forest of speamen stooping to the lie of the
ground, and IIow rising and now falling, like water-reeds when the west
wind plays among them. Under that innumerable host, that stretched in
dust and turmoil two long miles back to where the gray spires of
Abbeville were misty on the sky, the rasp of countloss feet sounded in
the
still air like the rain falling on a lealy forest.
Never did such a horde set out -before to crush a desperate band of
raiders. And that all khe warlike show might not lack its head and
consummation, between their rear-guard ranks came Philip, the vassal
monarch who held the mighty fiefs that Edward coveted. Lord! how he
and his did shine and glint in the sunshine! How their flags did flutter
and
their heralds blow as the resplendent group -- a deep, strong ring of peers
and princes curveting in the hickering shade of a score of rmighty blazons
-- came over the hill-crest and rode out to the foremost tire of battle
and
took places there to see the English lion flaved. With a mighty shont,
a
portentous roar from rear to front which thundered along their van and
died away among the host behind, the French heralded the entry of their
king upon the field, and with one fatal accord the whole vast baying pack
broke loose from order and restraint and came at us.
We stood aghast to see~them. Fools! SIadmen! They swept down to the
river -- a hundred thousand horse and footmen bent upon one narrow
passage -- and rushed in, every chief and captain scrambling with his
neighbor to be first -- troops, squadrons, ranks, all lost in one seething
crowd -- disordered, unwarlike. And thus, quivering and chaotic, heaving
with the stress of its OWII vast bull;, mlder a hundred jealous leaders,
the
great army rushed upon us.
While they struggled thns' out galloped King Edward to our front,
bareheaded, his jeweled warden staft held in his mailed fist, and, riding
down our ranks, and checking the wanton fire of that gray charger, who
curveted and prounly
195
bent his glossy neck in answer to our cheering, proun, calm. eyed, and
happy, King Edward spoke:
"My dear comrades and lieges linked with me in this adventure -- you, my
gallant English peers, whose shinY bucklers are the bright bulwarks Of
our throne, whose bold sp.rits and matchless constancy havo made this
just quarrel possible -- oh! well I know I need not urge you to that valor
which is yonr native breath. ELight well I know how true your hearts do
beat under their steely panoply; and there is false Philip ~vatching you,
and here am 1. Yonder, behind us, the gray sea lies, and if we fall or
fail it
will be no broader for them than 'tis for us. Stand firm to-day, then,
dear
friends and cousins. Remember, every blow that's struck is struck for
England, every foot you give of this fair hill-side presages the giving
of an
ell of England. Remember, Philip's hungry hordes, like ragged lurchers
in
the slip, are lean with waiting for your patriolouies. Remember all this,
and stand as strong to-day for me as I and mine shall stand for you. And
you, my trusty English yeomen," said the soldier king, "you whose strong
limbs were grown in pleasant England, oh, show me here the mettle of
those same pastures! God! when I do turn from yonder hireling sea of
shiny steel and mark how square your sturdy valor stands unto it, how
your clear iEnglish eyes do look unfaltering into that yeasty flood of
treachery, why, I would not one single braggart yonder the less for you
to lop and drive; I would not have that broad butt that Pl~ilip sets for
us
to shoot at the narrower by one single coward tunic. Yonder, I say, ride
the lank lusty Frenchmen who thirst to reeve ypur acres and father to-
morrow, if so they may, your waitin~ wives and chil(lren. To it, then,
dear
comrades -- upon them, for King Edward and for fair England's honor!
Strike home upon these braggart bullies who would heir the lion's den
even while the lion lives; strike for St. George and England! And nl3V
the
sweet God who gives the fortunes of each day junge now 'tween them
and us!"
As the king finished five thousand English archers went forward in a long
gray lble, aun, getting into shot of the first ranks of the enemy, drew
out
their long-bows from their cowhide cases and set the b~wfeet to the
ground and bent and strung them; and then it wonld have done you good
to see the glint of the sunshine on the hail of arrows that swept the hillside
and plunged into those seething ranks below. The closemassed foemen
writhed and winced under that remorseless storm. The Genoese in front
halted and slung their crossbows, and fired whole sheaves of bolts upon
us that fell a'
196
stingless as reed Javelins on a village green, for 3 passmg rain-storm
had
wet their bowstrings, and the slack sinews scarce sent a bolt inside our
fences, while every shaft we sped plunged deep and fatal. Lond laughed
the English archers at this, and plied their biting flights of arrows with
fierce energy, and, all in wild confusion, the mercenaries yelled and
screamed and pulled their ineffectual weapons, and, stern shut off from
advance by the flying rain of good gray shafts, and crushed from behind
by the crowding throng, tossed in wilct confusion, and broke and fled.
Then did I see a sight to spoil a soldier's dreams. As the coward bowmen
fell back, the men-at-arms behind them, wroth to be so long shut ofl the
foe, and pressed in turn by the troops in rear, fell m1 them, and there,
under our eyes, we saw the first rank of Philip's splendid host at war
with
the second; we saw the billmell of fair Bascquerard and Bruneval lop
down the olive mercenaries from Roquemaure and the cities of the
midland sea; we saw the savage Genoese falcons rip open the gay livery
of Lyons and Bavonne, and all the while our shafts rained thick and fast
among them, and men fell dead by scores in that hideous turmoil; and
none could tell whether 'twas friends or foes that slew them.
~ wonderful day, indeed; but hard was the fighting ere it was done. My
poor pen fails before all the crowled incidents that comes before me, all
the splendid episodes of a stirring combat, all the glitter and joy and
misery, the proun exultation of that August harvest, and the black chagrin
of its evening. Truth; but you must take, as said, a hundred times as much
as I can tell you, and line continually my bare suggestions with your
goncrous understanding.
NVell thoagh our archers stood the first brunt, the day was not left all
to
them. Soon the French footmen, thirsting for vengeance, had overriden
and trampled down their Genoese illies, and came at us up the slope,
driving back our skirmish;`rs as the white squall drives the wheeling sea-
mews before it, .-`nd surged against our palisades, and came tossing and
glinting down upon our halberdiers. The loun English cheer echoed the
wild yelling of the southerners; bill and pike, and sivord and mace and
dagger sent up a thunderous roar all down our front, while overhead the
pennons gleamed in the dustg sunlight, and the carrion-crows wheeled
and laughed with hungry pleasure above that surging line. Gods! 'twas a
good shock, and the crimson blood went smoking down to the rivulets,
and the savage scream of battle vrent up into the sky as that long front
of
ours, locked fast in the burnished arm~
197
of France, heaved and strove, and bGnt DOW this way and now that, like
some strong, well-matched wrestlers.
A good shock indeed! A wilcl, tremeodous scene of confusion there on the
loug grass of that autumn hill, with the dark woods behind on the ringe,
and, down in front, the babbling river and the smoking houses of the
ruined village. So sast was the extent of Philip's array that at times
we saw
it extend far to right aml left of us; and so deep was it that we who battled
amid the thunder of its front could hear a mile back to their rear the
angry
hum of rage and disappointulent as the chaotic troops, in the bitterness
of
the spreading confusion, struggled blindly to come at us. Their Yery
number was our salvation. 'That half of the great army which had safely
crossed the stream lay along outside our palisades like some splendid,
writhing, helple~ss monster, and the long swell of their dead-locked
masses, the long writhe of their fatal confusion, you could see heaving
that glittering tide like the golden pulse of a summer sea pellt in a crescent
shore. And we were that shore! All along our front the StOllt, unblanehing
Loglish yeomen stood to it -- the white English tunic was breast to breast
with the leathe n kirtles of Genoa and Turin. Before the frightful blows
of
those stalwart pikemen the yellow mail of the gay troopers of
Chateauroux and Besanc,on crackled like dry December leaves; the
rugged boar-skius on the svide shoulders of Vosges peasants were less
protection 'gainst their fiery thrust than a thickness of lady's lawn.
Down
they lopped them, one and all, those strong, good English hedgement, till
our bloody fosse was full -- full of olive mercenaries from Tarascon and
Arles -- full of writhing Bisc and hideous screaming Genoese. And still
we
slew them, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, and still they swamed
against us, while we piled knight and vassal, serf and master, prdlceling
and slave, all into that ditch in front. The fair young boy and gray-bearded
sire, the freeman and the serf, the living and the dead, all went down
together, till a broad rampart stretched along our swinging shouting
front, and the glittering might of France surged up to that human dam
and broke upon it like the futile waves, and went to pieces, and fell back
under the curling yellow storm-cloun of mid-battle.
Meanwhile, on right and left, the day was fiercely fought. Far upon the
one hand the wild Irish kerns were repelling all the efforts of Beaupreau's
light footmen, and pulling down the gay horsemen of fair Bcurges by the
distant Loire. Three times those squadrons were all among them, and
three !inles the wild red sons of Shannon and the dim Atlantic h~lls fel
198
on them like the wolves of their own rugged glens, ana ham. strung the
sleek southern chargers, and lopped the fahen viders, and repelled
each
desperate foray, making war doubly hideotls with their clamor and the
bloody scenes of butchery that befell among their priSQnerS after each
onset.
And, on the other crescent of our battle, my dear, tuneful, licentious
Wrelshmen were out Upon the slope, driving off with their nati-ve ardor
one and all that came against them, and, worked up to a fine fury by their
chanting minstrels, whose shrill piping came ever and anon Upon the
wind, the~ pressed the southerners hard, and again and again drove them
down the hill ~a good, a gallant crew that I have ever liked, with half
a
dozen vices and a score of virtues. I had charged by them one time in the
day, and, cantering back with my troop behind their ranks, I saw a young
Welsh chieftain on a rock beside himself with valor and battle. Oe was
leaping and shouting as nolle but a W elshman could or would, and
beating his sword upon his round Clymric shield, the while he yelled to
his fighting vassals below a fierce old British battle-song. Oh, it was
very
strange for me, pel~t in that shining Plantagenet mail, to listen to thoso
wild, hot words of scorn and hatred; I, who had heard those words so
often when the ancestors of that chanting boy were not begotten; I, who
had heard those fierce verses SUllg in the red confusion of forgotten wars
-- I could not hell~ pulling rein a moment as that song of exultation,
full of
words and phrases nono but I could fully understand, swelled up through
the eddying war-dust; over the Welshmen's reeling line. I, so strong and
young; I, who yet was more ancient than the singer's vaguest traditions
--
I stopped a moment and listened to him, full of remembrance and sad
wonder while the pfean-dirge of victory and death swelled to the sky
over the clamor of the combat. And then -- as a mavis drops into the
covert when his morning SOllg is done -- the welshmall finished, and, mad
with the wine of battle, leaped straight into the tossing sea below, and
was
ingulfed and swallowed up like a white spume-flako on the bosom of a
wavo.
For three long ho~lrs the battlo raged from oast to wost, and men fought
foot to foot and harnd to hand, and 'twas stab and hack and thurst, and
the pounding of ownerless horsos, and the wail of dying men, and the
husky cries of captains, and the interminable clash of steel on steel,
so that
no man could see all the fight at once, save the good king alone, who sat
back there at his vantage-point. It was all this, I say; and then about
soyen
in the evening, when the sun was near his setting,
199
it soomod, all in a socond, as though the wholo west were in a glow, and
there was Lord Alenc,ol-l sweeping down upon our right with the
splondid array of l'llilip's chivalry, their~pennons a-dance above and
their
endf ss ranks of spearS in serried ranks below. There was no time to
think, it seemed. A wild shout of fear and wonder w: ut up from all the
lEnglish host. Our reserves were turned to meet the new danger; the
archers poured their gray-goose shafts Upon the thundering squadrons;
princes and peers and knights were littered on the road that brilliant
host
v,-as treading; and then they were among the English yeomen with a
frightful crash of flesh and blood and horse and steel that drowned all
other sound of battle with its cruel import. Jove! what strong stuff the
English valor is! Those good Saxon countrymen, sure in the confidence of
our great brothorhood, kept their line undor that hideous shock as
though each fought for a crown; and, shoulder to shoulder and hand to
hand, an impenetrable living wall, derided the terrors of the golden
torrent that burst upon them. Each man there was a hero, and when one
hero died another stepped into his placo, aAnd another and another.
Happy king, to yield such stuff! thrice-happy country that can rear it!
In
vain wave upon wave burst upon those hardy islauners; in vain the stern
voice of Alenc,on sent rank after rank of proun lords and courtly gallants
upon those rugged English husbandmen; they would not move, and
when they would not the Frenchmen hesitated.
'Twas our moment! I had had my leave just thon now from the king, and
did uot neod it twico. I saw that groat front of Fronch cavalry heaving
slow upon our hither faco, galled by the arrow-rain that novor ceased,
and irresolute whethor to come on once again or go back, and I turned to
the cohort of my dear voterans. I do not know what I said, the voice came
thick and husky in my throat, I could but wave my iron mace abovo my
head and point to the Frenchmen. And then all those good gray spears
went down as though 'twere ono hand that lowered them, and all the
chargers movod at onco. I led them round the nnglish front, and there,
clapping spurs to our ready coursers' flanks, five hundred of us, knit
closo
together, with cuo heart beating one measuro, shot out into array, and,
sweeping across the slope, charged boldly ten thousand Frenchmen.
Wo raced across the Crecy slope, drinking the fierce wine of expectant
couflict with every breath, our straining chargers thundering in
tumultuous rhythm over the short space between, and in anothor minuto
we broke upon the oemen,
200
Bravely they met us. They turned when we were two hundred paces
distant, and advancing their silkenJlet~r-cle-lis, and pricking up their
chargers, weary with pursuit and battle, and came at us as you will see
a
rock-thwarted wave run angry back to meet another strong incoming
sr~rge. And as thoso two waves meet, and toss and leap together, and
dash their strength into each other, the while the whito spume fies a`~ay
behind them, and with thunderous arrogarlce the stronger bursts through
the other, and goes streauling on triamphant through all the white boil
and litter of the fight, so fell we on those princelings. 'Twas just a
blinding
c~-ash -- the coming together of two great walls of steel. I felt I was
being
lifted like a dry leaf on the summit of that tremendous con junction, and
I
could but ply my mace blindly on those glittering casques that shone all
round me, and, I now remember, cracked under its meteor sweep like
ripe nuts under an urchin's hammer. So dense were the first moments of
that shock of chivalry that eten our horses fought. I saw my own charger
rip open the glossy neck of another that bore a :Frenchman; and near by,
though I thought naught of it then, a great black Flemish stallion, mad
with battle, had a wounded soldier in his teeth, and was worrying and
Ehalking him as a lurcher worries a screaming leveret. So dense was the
throng we scarce could ply our weapons, and one dead knight fell right
athwart my saddle-bow; and a flying hand, lopped by some mighty blow,
still grasping the hilt of a broken blade, struck me on the helm. The warm
red blood spurting from a headless trunk half blinded me; and, all the
time, overhead the French lilies kept stooping at the English lion, and
now
one went down, and then the other, and the roar of the host went up into
the sky, and the dust and turmoil, the savage uproar, the unheard,
unpitied shriek of misery and the cruel exultation of the victor, and then
--
how soon I know not -- we were braveling.
Ah! by the great God of battles, we were mosing, and forward; the
mottled gronun was slipping by us, and the French were giving. I rose in
my stirrups, and, hoars~e as any raven that ever dipped a black wing in
the crimson pools of battle, shouted to my veterans. It did not need. I
had
fought least vwell of any in that grim company, and now with one accord
we pushed the foeman hard. We saw the great roan Flanders jennets slide
back upon their haunches, and slip and plu~nge in the purple quagmire
we had made, and then -- each like a good ship well freighted -- lurch
and
go down, and we stamped beribboned horse and jeweled rider alike into
the
201
red, frothy marsh under our hoofs. And the 7Yettr-de-1Is sunk, and the
silver roe of ~layenne, proun Montereau's azure falcon, and the white
crescent of Donzenac went down, and Bernay's yellow corn-sheaf and
Sarreburg's golden blazon, v.,ith many another gauny pennon; and then,
somehow, the foemen broke and dissolved before our heavy,-foam-
streaked chargers, anLI, as we gaspsd the hot breath through our close
helmet-bars, there came a clear space before us, with flying horsemen
scouring off on every haun.
rl~he day was well-nigh won, and I could see that far to left the English
ycomen were drisring the scattered clouns of Philip's footmen pell-meh
~lown the lfill, and then we went again after his horsemen who were
gathering suhen ly upon the lower slopes. Over the grass we scoured like
a brown whirlwind, and in a minute were all among the French lordlings.
And dow~1 they went, horse and foot, riders and banners, crowding ans)
crushing each other in a confusion terrible to behold, now SU~ering
OVOn more from their own chaos than from our lances. Jovel brother
trod brother down that day, and comrade lay heaped on living comra~e
under that red confusion. The pennons -- such as had ontlived the storm
so far -- were all entangled sheaves, and sunk, whole stocks at once, into
the floundering sea below. And kings and princes, hinds and yeomen,
gasped and choked and glowered at us, so fast-locked in the deadly
wedge that went slowly roaring back before our fiery onsets they could
not move an arm or foot.
The tale is nearly told. Everywhere the English were victorious, and the
Frenchmen fell in wild dismay before them. Many a bold attempt they
made to turn the tide, and many a diesperate sally and gallant stand the
fading daylight witnessed. 'l~he old King of Bohemia, to whom daylight
and night y ere all as one, with fifty knights, their reins l(notted fast
togeiller, chargod us, and died, one and all, like the good soldie~ s tlmt
they were. And Philip, over yonder, wrung his whits hands, and pawned
his revenue in vows to the unmoved saints; and the soft, braggart peers
that cronded round him gnawed their lips and frowned and looked first at
the ruined, smoldering fight, then back -- far back -- to where, in the
south, friendly evening was already holding out to them the dusky cover
of the coming night. It was a good day, indeed, and may England at her
need ever fight so well.
Would that I might in this truthful chronicle have turned to other things
while the long roar of exultation goes up from famous Crecy and the
strong wine of well-deserved victory
202
filled my heart. Alas! there is that to tell which mars the tale and dims
the
shine of conquest.
Already thirty thousand Frenchmen were slain, and the long swathes lay
all across the swelling ground like the black rims of weed when the sea
goes back. Only here and there the battle still went on, where groups and
knots of men were fighting, and I, with my good comrade Flamaucceur,
IIow, at sunset, was in sach a melee on the right. All through the day
he
had been like a shadow to me, and shame that I ha`7e said so little of
it.
Where I went there he was, Hitting in his close gray armor close behind
me; quick, watchful, faithful, all through the turmoil and dusty war-mist;
escaping, ITeaven knows how, a thousand dangers; riding his light war-
horse down the bloody lanes of war as he ever rode it, as if they two were
one; gentie, retiring, more expert in parrying thrust and blow than in
giving -- that dear friend of mine, with a heart made stout by consuming
love against all its native fears, had followed me.
And now the spe~lt battle went smoldering out, and we there thought
'twas all extinguished, when all on a sunden -- I tell it less briefly
than it
happened -- a desperate band of foemen bore down on us, and, as we
joined, my charger took a hurt, and went crashing over, and threw me
full into the rank tangle of the under fight. Thereon, the yeomen, seeing
me fall, set up a cry, and, with a rush, bore the Frenchmell four spear-
lengths back, and lifted me, unhurt, from the littered ground. They gave
me a sword, and as I turned, from the foemen's ranks, waving a beamy
sword, plumed by a towering crest of nodding feathers and covered by a
mighty shield, a gigantic warrior stepped out. Hoth! I can see him now,
mad with defeat and shame, striding on foot toward us -- a giant in
glittering pearly armor, that shone and glittered in the last rays of the
level sun against the black backing of the evening rky, as though its
wearer had been the Archallgel Gabriel himseif! It did not need to look
upon him twice; 'twas the Lord High Constable of France himself -- the
best swordsman, the sternest soldier, and the brightest star of chivalry
in
the whole French firmament. And if that noble peer was hot for fight, no
less was I. Stung by my fall, and glorying in such a foeman, I ran to meet
him, and there, in a little open space, while our soldiers leaned idly
on
their weapons and watched, we fought. The first swoop of the great
constable's humming falchion lighted slanting on my shield and shore my
crest; had it been otherwise this tale had never been told. Then I let
out,
and the blow fell on his shield, and sent the giant
203
etaggering back, and chipped the pretty quarterings of a hun. dred
ancestors from that gilded target. At it again we went, and round and
romld, raining our thunderous blows upon each other with noise like
bowlders orashing down a mountain valley. I did not think there was a
man within the four seas who could have stood against me so long as that
fierce and bulky Frenchman did. For a long time we fought so hard and
stubborn that the blootl-miry soil was stamped into a circle where we v,
ent r ound and round, raining our blows so strong, quick, and heavy that
the air was full of tumult, and glaring at each other over our morion bars,
while our burnished scales and links flew from us at every deadly contact,
and the hot breath steamed into the air, and the warm, smarting blood
crept from between our jointed harness. Yet neither would bate a jot, but
with fiery hearts and heaving breasts and painbursting muscles, l~ept to
it, and stamped round and round those grimy, steaming lists,
redoubtable, indomitable, and mad with the lust of killing.
And then -- Jove! how near spent I was! -- the great constable, on a
sunden, threw away his many-quartered shield, and, whirling up his
sword with both hands high above his head, a~imed a frightful blow at
me. No mortal blade or shield or helmet could have withstood that
mighty stroke! I did not try, but, as it fell, stepped nimbly back -- 'twas
a
good Sa::on trick, learned in the distant time -- and then, as the
falchionpoint buried itself a foot deep in the ground, and the giant
staggered forward, I flew at him like a wild cat, and through the closed
helmet bars, through teeth and skull and the threefold solid brass behind,
thrust my sword so straight and fiercely the smoking point came two feet
oat behind his nape, and, with a lurch and cry, the great peer tottered
and
fell dead before rse.
Now comes that thing to which all other things are little, the fellest
gleam
of augry steel of all the steel that had shone since noon, the cruelest
stab
of ten tl-lousand stabs, the bitterest cry of any that had marred the full
yellow circle of that August day! I had dropped on one knee by the
champion, and taken his hand, had loosed his visor, and shouted to two
monks, who were pattering with bare feet about the field (for, indeed,
I
was sorry, if perchance any spark of life remained, so brave a knight
should die unshliven to his contentment), and thus was forgotten for the
moment the fight, the confronting rows of foemell, and how near I was to
those who had seen their great captain fall by my hands. Miserable,
aon.ursed oversight! ~ had not knelt by my fahen enemy
204
moment, when sundenly my men set up a cry behind me, there was a
rush of hoofs, and ere I could regain my feet or snatch my sword or shield
a great black French rider, like a shadowy fury dropped from the suhen
evening sky, his plumes all streaming~behind him, his head low down
between his horse's ears, and his long blue spear in rest, was thundering
in midcareer against me not a dozen paces distant. As I am a soldier, and
have lived many ages by my sword, that chaige must have been fatal.
And would that it had been! now can I write it? liven as I started to my
feet, before I cmild lift a brand or offer one light parry to that swift,
l~een
point' the horseman was upon me. And as he closed, as that great
vengeance-driven tower of steel and flesh loomed above me, there was a
scream -- a wild scream of fear and love -- (and I clap my hands to my
ears now, cenntries afterward, to deaden the undying vibrations of that
sound) -- and Flamaucoeur had thrown himself 'tween me and the spear-
point, had taken it, fenceless, unwarded, fall in his sidc, and I saw the
cruel
shaft break short off by his mail as those Iou~; both horses and both
riders, went headlong to the ground.
Up rose the English with an angry shout, and swept past us, killing the
black champion as they went, and driving the French before them far
down into the valley. Then ran I to my dear comrade, and knelt and lifted
him against my knee. He had swooned, and I groaned in hitterness and
fear when I saw the strong red tide that was pulsing from his wound and
quilting his bright English armor. With quick, ncrvous fingers -- bursting
such rivets as would not yield, all forgetful of his secret, and that I
had
never seen him unhelmed before -- I unloosed his casque, and then gently
drew it from his head.
With a cry I dropped the great helm, and well-nigh let e'en my fair burden
fall, for there, against my knee, her white, sweet face against my iron
bosom, her fair yellow hair, that had been coiled in the emptiness of her
helmet, all adrift about us, those dear curled lips that had smiled so
tender
and indulgent on me, her gentle life ebbing from her at every throe, was
not I'lamaueeour, the unlknown knight, the foolish and love-sick boy, but
that wayward, lucl~less girl -- Isobel of Oswaldston herself!
And if I had been sorry for my companion in arms, think how the pent
grief and surprise filled my heart, as there, dying genily in my arms,
was
the fair girl whom, by a tardy, late-born love, new sprung in my empty
heart, I had come to look upon as the point of my ionely world, u~y fair
heritage in an empty epoch, for the asking!
205
Soon she moved a little, and sighed, and looked up straight into my eyes.
As she did so the color burned for a moment with a pale glow in her
cheeks, and I felt the tremor of her body as she knew her secret was a
secret no longer. Sl e lay there bleeding and gasping painfully upon my
breast, aa~ ~hen she smiled, and pulled my plumed head down to her and
whispered:
"You are not angry?"
Angry? Gods! my heart was heavier than it had been all that day of dint
and caruage, and my eyes were dim and my lips were dry with a
knowledge of the coming grief as I bent and kissed her. She took the kiss
unresisting, as though it were her right, and gasped again:
"And you understand now all -- everything? Why I ransomed the l'rench
maiden? Why I would not write for thee to thy unknown mistress?"
"I know -- I know, sweet girl!"
"And you bear no ill thought of me?"
"The great Heaven you believe in be my witness, sweet Isobel! I love you,
and know of nothing else."
She lay back upon me, seeming to sleep for a moment or two; then
started up and clapped her hands to her ears, as if to shut out the sound
of
by-gone battle that no doubt was still thundering through then~; then
swooned again, while I bent in sorrow over her and tried in vaiu to
soothe and stauch the great wound that was draining out her gentle life.
She lay so still and white that I thought she were already dead; but
presently, with a gasp, her eyes opened, and she looked wistfully to
where the western sky was hanging pale over the narrow English sea.
"How far to England, dear friend?"
"A few leagues of land and water, sweet maid."
"Could I reach it, dost thou think?" But then, on an instant, shaking her
head, she went on, "Nay, do not answer; I was foolish to ask. Oh, dearest,
dearest sister Alianora! My father -- my gentlest father! Oh, tell them,
sir,
from me -- and beg them to forgive!" And she lay back white upon my
shoulder.
She lay, breathing slow, upon me for a spell; then, on a sunden, her fair
fingers tightened in my mailed hand, and she signed that she would speak
again.
"Remember that I loved thee!" whispered Isobel, and with those last
words the yellow head fell back npon my shoulder, the blue eyes
wavered and sunk, and her spirit fled,
206
Back by the lines of gleeful shouting troops -- back by where the laughing
:English knights, with visors up, were talking of the day's achievements
--
back by where the proun king, hand in hand with his brave boy, was
thanking the stout lEnglish yeoma, lol Orecy and another kingdom -- back
by where the champing, toamy charges were picketed in rows -- back by
the knots of archers, all, like honest workmen, wiping down their
unstrung bows -- back by groups of suhen prisoners and gauny heaps
of
captured pennons, we passed.
In front four good yeomen bore lsobel upon their trestled spears; then
came I, bareheaded -- I, kinsmanless, to her in all that camp the only
kin;
and then our drooping chargers, empty-saddled, led by young squires
behind, and Seeffling -- good beasts! -- to sniff and scent the sorrow
of
that fair burden on ahead So we went throagh the victorious camp to our
lodgment, and there they placed Isobel on her bare soldier oouch, her feet
to the door of her soldier tent, and left us.
To Contents Page
Chapter 16
