Agincourt: A Romance: The Works of G. P. R. James, Volume XXJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
Agincourt: A Romance: The Works of G. P. R. James, Volume XX
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Agincourt, Battle of, Agincourt, France, 1415 -- Fiction
After halting for two hours, the march was renewed; and wending slowly
onward, they reached the small town--for it was then a town--of
Gonlieu, having accomplished a distance of nearly eighteen leagues. It
was within half an hour of midnight when they arrived, and the good
people of the place had to be roused from their beds to provide them
with lodgings; but a party of two hundred men-at-arms was not in that
day to be refused anything they might think fit to require; and, in
the different houses and stables of the town, they were all at length
comfortably housed.
Richard of Woodville was not one of those men who require long sleep
to refresh them after any ordinary fatigue; and though, with the care
and attention of an Arab, he spent a full hour in inspecting the
treatment of his horses before he lay down to rest, yet, after a quiet
repose of about four hours and a half, he awoke, and instantly sprang
from the pallet which had been provided for him. He then immediately
roused the young Lord of Lens, who, with five or six others, slept in
the same chamber; but the poor youth gazed wildly round him, at first
seeming to have forgotten where he was; and it required a hint from
his English friend, that the old Lord of Roucq was a man likely to be
up early in the day, ere he could make up his mind to rise.
Woodville and his companion had been in the stable about five minutes,
and were just setting the half-awakened horse-boys to their work, when
a voice was heard at the open door, saying, "This is well!--this is as
it should be!" and, turning round, they saw the figure of the old
knight moving slowly away to the quarters of another party.
In an hour more, they were again upon the road; but their march was
this day less fatiguing; and Woodville remarked that their veteran
leader seemed to expect some intelligence from the country into which
they were advancing; for at each halting place he caused inquiries to
be made for messengers seeking him, and more than once stopped the
peasantry on the road, questioning them strictly, though no one
clearly seemed to understand his drift. He seemed, too, to be somewhat
undecided as to his course, and talked of going on to Orvillers, or at
least to Conchy; but he halted for the night, however, at Tilloloy,
and quartered his men in that village and St. Nicaise.
Woodville and his party were lodged in the latter, where also the old
commander slept; but about three in the morning the young Englishman
was roused by voices speaking, followed by some one knocking at a
neighbouring door; and half-raised upon his arm, he was listening to
ascertain, if possible, what was the cause of this interruption of
their repose, when the door of the room was opened, as far as the body
of one of the English yeomen, who slept across it, would permit.
"Halloo! Master Woodville," said the voice of the Lord of Roucq. "Up,
and to horse--your beasts are not broken down, I trust?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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