From my open window I gazed across the street at the Lys de France. The
door of the common-room, opening upon the street, was set wide, and across
the threshold came a flood of light in which there flitted the black
figures of maybe a dozen amazed rustics, drawn thither for all the world as
bats are drawn to a glare.
And there they hovered with open mouths and stupid eyes, hearkening to the
din of voices that floated out on the tranquil air, the snatches of ribald
songs, the raucous bursts of laughter, the clink of glasses, the clank of
steel, the rattle of dice, and the strange soldier oaths that fell with
every throw, and which to them must have sounded almost as words of some
foreign tongue.
Whilst I stood by my window, the landlord entered my room, and coming up to
me--
"Thank Heaven they are not housed at the Vigne d'Or," he said. "It will
take Ma?tre Bernard a week to rid his house of the stench of leather. They
are part of a stray company that is on its way to fight the Spaniards," he
informed me. "But methinks they will be forced to spend two or three days
at Blois; their horses are sadly jaded and will need that rest before they
can take the road again, thanks to the pace at which their boy of an
officer must have led them.
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