"And wherein lies our wisdom, honored sir?" asked Nigel. "I also would fain be war-wise and learn to fight with my wits as well as with my sword."Chandos shook his head and smiled. "It is in the forest and on the down that you learn to fly the hawk and loose the hound," said he. "So also it is in camp and on the field that the mystery of war can be learned. There only has every great captain come to be its master. To start he must have a cool head, quick to think, soft as wax before his purpose is formed, hard as steel when once he sees it before him. Ever alert he must be, and cautious also, but with judgment to turn his caution into rashness where a large gain may be put against a small stake. An eye for country also, for the trend of the rivers, the slope of the hills, the cover of the woods, and the light green of the bog-land."Poor Nigel, who had trusted to his lance and to Pommers to break his path to glory, stood aghast at this list of needs. "Alas!" he cried. "How am I to gain all this? - I, who could scarce learn to read or write though the good Father Matthew broke a hazel stick a day across my shoulders? ""You will gain it, fair son, where others have gained it before you. You have that which is the first thing of all, a heart of fire from which other colder hearts may catch a spark. But you must have knowledge also of that which warfare has taught us in olden times. We know, par exemple, that horsemen alone cannot hope to win against good foot-soldiers. Has it not been tried at Courtrai, at Stirling, and again under my own eyes at Crecy, where the chivalry of France went down before our bowmen?"Nigel stared at him, with a perplexed brow. "Fair sir, my heart grows heavy as I hear you. Do you then say that our chivalry can make no head against archers, billmen and the like?""Nay, Nigel, for it has also been very clearly shown that the best foot-soldiers unsupported cannot hold their own against the mailed horsemen.""To whom then is the victory?" asked Nigel.
"To him who can mix his horse and foot, using each to strengthen the other. Apart they are weak. Together they are strong. The archer who can weaken the enemy's line, the horseman who can break it when it is weakened, as was done at Falkirk and Duplin, there is the secret of our strength. Now touching this same battle of Falkirk, I pray you for one instant to give it your attention."With his whip he began to trace a plan of the Scottish battle upon the dust, and Nigel with knitted brows was trying hard to muster his small stock of brains and to profit by the lecture, when their conversation was interrupted by a strange new arrival.
It was a very stout little man, wheezy and purple with haste, who scudded down the rampart as if he were blown by the wind, his grizzled hair flying and his long black gown floating behind him.
He was clad in the dress of a respectable citizen, a black jerkin trimmed with sable, a black-velvet beaver hat and a white feather.
At the sight of Chandos he gave a cry of joy and quickened his pace so that when he did at last reach him he could only stand gasping and waving his hands.
"Give yourself time, good Master Wintersole, give yourself time!"said Chandos in a soothing voice.
"The papers!" gasped the little man. "Oh, my Lord Chandos, the papers - ""What of the papers, my worthy sir?"
"I swear by our good patron Saint Leonard, it is no fault of mine!
I had locked them in my coffer. But the lock was forced and the coffer rifled."A shadow of anger passed over the soldier's keen face.
"How now, Master Mayor? Pull your wits together and do not stand there babbling like a three-year child. Do you say that some one hath taken the papers?""It is sooth, fair sir! Thrice I have been Mayor of the town, and fifteen years burgess and jurat, but never once has any public matter gone awry through me. Only last month there came an order from Windsor on a Tuesday for a Friday banquet, a thousand soles, four thousand plaice, two thousand mackerel, five hundred crabs, a thousand lobsters, five thousand whiting - ""I doubt not, Master Mayor, that you are an excellent fishmonger;but the matter concerns the papers I gave into your keeping.
Where are they?"
"Taken, fair sir-gone!"
"And who hath dared to take them?"
"Alas! I know not. It was but for as long as you would say an angelus that I left the chamber, and when I came back there was the coffer, broken and empty, upon my table.""Do you suspect no one?"
"There was a varlet who hath come with the last few days into my employ. He is not to be found, and I have sent horsemen along both the Udimore road and that to Rye, that they may seize him.
By the help of Saint Leonard they can scarce miss him, for one can tell him a bow-shot off by his hair.""Is it red?" asked Chandos eagerly. "Is it fox-red, and the man a small man pocked with sun-spots, and very quick in his movements?""It is the man himself."
Chandos shook his clenched hand with annoyance, and then set off swiftly down the street.
