THOMAS IN RELIGION: AND OF MIRACLES WROUGHT BY BROTHER THOMAS The ways were rude and long from Bordeaux town to Orleans, whither I had set my face, not knowing, when I left my own country, that the city was beleaguered by the English.

For who could guess that lords and knights of the Christian faith, holding captive the gentle Duke of Orleans, would besiege his own city ?--a thing unheard of among the very Saracens, and a deed that God punished.

Yet the news of this great villainy, namely, the leaguer of Orleans, then newly begun, reached my ears on my landing at Bordeaux, and made me greatly fear that I might never meet my brother Robin alive.

And this my doubt proved but too true, for he soon after this time fell, with many other Scottish gentlemen and archers, deserted shamefully by the French and by Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Clermont, at the Battle of the Herrings.

But of this I knew nothing--as, indeed, the battle was not yet fought--and only pushed on for France, thinking to take service with the Dauphin against the English.