Horace de St. Aunay, although he received warning of the coming attack, was by no means in a condition to offer such resistance as he could have wished. The Lancastrians were by far the stronger party in his neighbourhood, and the Baron’s forces greatly outnumbered his own. I need not dwell upon the particulars of the events which followed. The Guerre-à-mort army crossed the river, defeated the levies of St. Aunay in a skirmish on the plain, and drove them in every direction before their victorious advance. Horace de St. Aunay, wounded by an arrow, was reported killed, and it was impossible to rally his people under another leader. The haughty Baron had it all his own way; he plundered the farmyards, raised a bonfire of what he didn’t want to carry away, and made himself as unpleasant as possible to the harmless population, who, naturally and properly enough, no doubt, always have to suffer for the whims and quarrels of the great. He next {110}marched upon the Castle of St. Aunay, but found that it was deserted, and, having by that time had enough of burning and plundering for a time, contented himself with throwing down the big gates, breaking a few windows, and flaunting his own banner over the highest turret. Then, having collected all his booty, he turned homewards, and, having satisfied his private grudge against his neighbour, felt his interest in the Lancastrian cause wonderfully lessened, and began to want his daughter back again. She, poor girl, had passed by no means a happy time in her convent, where the good nuns devoutly prayed for the Lancastrians, and especially for her worthy father, upon every possible opportunity, and where she never had a chance of hearing any news of her lover, or of saying a kind word for him or any other of his party. At last, one day, the lady superior informed her with an air of triumph that news had come of the defeat of St. Aunay’s people by her father, and that the Count had been killed in the battle. The poor girl turned deadly pale, and swooned away at this intelligence. Fortunately for her, the Lady Superior, being a person of extraordinary intelligence, knew at once that such a result must certainly have been produced by Mathilde’s alarm for her father’s safety, and gratitude for his success. Having therefore taken the usual means to recover her from her fainting fit, the good lady loudly praised her filial affection, and held her up to the rest of the sisterhood as an example worthy of imitation, Mathilde thought it best to receive these compliments without taking any steps to alter the opinion of her worthy relative, but her suspense and anxiety were very {111}great, and all the more so from the fact that the difficulty of obtaining news of an authentic character was so considerable, that in all probability it would be weeks, and perhaps months, before she learned for certain whether her beloved Horace was alive or dead.