[A Monk of Fife by Andrew Lang]@TWC D-Link bookA Monk of Fife CHAPTER XII--HOW THE MAID CAME TO ORLEANS, AND OF THE DOLOROUS STROKE 16/20
But their men were giving ground, when by the monition of the saints, as I have shown, she came to them and turned the fray. Of the English, as I said, most were slain, natheless certain men in priests' raiment came forth from the Church of St.Loup, and very humbly begged their lives of the Maid, who, turning to D'Aulon, her esquire, bade him, with De Coutes and me, and such men as we could gather, to have charge of them and be answerable for them. So, while the French were plundering, we mustered these priests orderly together, they trembling and telling their beads, and we stood before them for their guard.
False priests, I doubt, many of them were, Englishmen who had hastily done on such holy robes as they found in the church of St Loup.
Now Louis de Coutes, being but a boy, and of a mad humour, cried-- "'Cucullus non facit monachum!' Good sirs, let us see your reverend tonsures." With that he twitched the hood from the head of a tall cordelier, who, without more ado, felled him to the earth with his fist. The hood was off but for a flash of time, yet I saw well the shining wolf's eyes and the long dark face of Brother Thomas.
So, in the pictures of the romance of Renard Fox, have I seen Isengrim the wolf in the friar's hood. "Felon and traitor!" I cried, and drawing my sword, was about to run him through the body, when my hand was stunned by a stroke, and the sword dropped from it.
I turned, in great anger, and saw the Maid, her sword in her hand, wherewith she had smitten me flatlings, and not with the edge. "Knave of a Scot," she cried, "wouldst thou strike a holy man and my prisoner? Verily they say well that the Scots are all savages.
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