[A Monk of Fife by Andrew Lang]@TWC D-Link book
A Monk of Fife

CHAPTER V--OF THE FRAY ON THE DRAWBRIDGE AT CHINON CASTLE
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Yet it was to me that she had spoken--to me that she had opened her heart.

Now I guessed that, if I was ever to win her, it must be through this Pucelle, on whom her mind was so strangely bent.

So I prayed that, if it might be God's will, He would prosper the Maid, and let me be her loyal servitor, and at last bring me to my desire.
Something also I dreamed, as young men will who have read many romances, of myself made a knight for great feats of arms, and wearing in my salade my lady's favour, and breaking a spear on Talbot, or Fastolf, or Glasdale, in some last great victory for France.
Then shone on my eyesight, as it were, the picture of these two children, for they were little more, Elliot and the Maid, kneeling together in the chapel of St.Martin, the gold hair and the black blended; and what were they two alone against this world and the prince of this world?
Alas, how much, and again how little, doth prayer avail us! These thoughts were in my mind all day, while serving and answering customers, and carrying my master's wares about the town, and up to the castle on the cliff, where the soldiers and sentries now knew me well enough, and the Scots archers treated me kindly.

But as for Elliot, she was like her first self again, and merrier than common with her father, to whom, as far as my knowledge went, she said not a word about the meeting in the crypt of St.Martin's chapel, though to me she had spoken so freely.

This gave me some hope; but when I would have tried to ask her a question, she only gazed at me in a manner that abashed me, and turned off to toy with her jackanapes.


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