CHAPTER XVII
The Haunted Circle
The July sun of 1354 was shining warm and bright on the broad stream of the Loire, and lighting up the hard, wooden, sun-browned faces of a group of peasants who sat talking on a bench at the door of a tiny wayside inn, on the high-road leading inland from Nantes along the river.
“Ill times, brothers,” said one older than the rest. “These ‘Free Companies,’ as men call them, are the bane of France. Luckily they have not come thus far yet; but who knows when they may? And if they do we are lost, one and all. Robbers in bands of twenty and thirty be ill enough, I trow; but when there come robbers enow for a whole army, with horse and foot, generals and captains, who take castles and put towns to ransom, what then?”
“Thou’rt right, Jacques. Wherever they have passed, ’tis as a flight of yon locusts whereof pilgrims tell. The whole face of the land is blasted!”
“Marry, thou say’st it, Paul; rich man’s hall or poor man’s hut, ’tis all one to them. Hath a peasant but one liard (halfpenny) sewn up in the lining of his hose, they will find and seize it!”
“There be worse things in the land than they, howbeit,” said another man.
“What, what?” cried several voices at once. “What worse can there be, lad?”
“Demons,” said Pierre, in a hoarse whisper, “such as he of the Haunted Circle.”
“Is the Phantom Knight abroad again, then?” asked Jacques, in an awe-stricken tone, while a visible shudder ran through the whole group.
“Ay, that is he. But three nights agone, Jean Roquard came home pale and fainting, having met the Phantom Knight in the moonlight; nor hath he been his own man since.”
“What is this tale, then, of the Haunted Circle and the Phantom Knight?” asked a stout, ruddy man—shown by the pack beside him to be a travelling pedlar—whose air of good-humoured impudence might have served Shakespeare as a model for his Autolycus.
“Thou must needs be a stranger here, not to know it!” cried Paul. “But if thou wouldst hear the tale, here is one can tell it thee. Sing us the lay, Gilles. I fear it not by day, though I would not care to hear it at night.”
The young fellow addressed—whose tawdry finery, and the light rebeck (lute) at his back, showed him to be one of the strolling minstrels who then swarmed in every part of Europe—sang as follows—
His hearers tremblingly crossed themselves, and for some moments no one spoke. At last the pedlar said—
“The spot is haunted, then, by the ghost of yon felon knight?”
“Even so; and he is ever seen when evil is in store for France. Just ere Crecy Field was fought, men saw him flitting to and fro in the Haunted Circle, uttering cries that made all hearts fail; and now that he hath shown himself again, no doubt some fresh trouble is at hand. God help us!”
“Of what form is he?” asked the pedlar, his ruddy face paling visibly.
“Like a knight fully armed, but with armour of ancient fashion, and all stained and rusty with lying long in the damp grave. He is ever seen on foot, with visor closed and sword in hand; and, be the moon ever so bright, he hath no shadow!”
Another general shiver attested the force of this realistic touch.
“But two short leagues hence lieth his haunt,” went on Jacques, “and ill it is for us, for none can pass that way by night without meeting him, and if they do——”
A gloomy shake of his head completed the sentence.
“Nay, if it be so,” said the pedlar, with a tremor that he made no attempt to disguise, “though I had thought to sup at St. Barnabé to-night, I will e’en bide here till morn.”
“Right, lad,” cried Pierre. “He who would sup with the Evil One must have a long spoon, and mad indeed must he be who would brave the phantom on his own ground after dark! May God send us speedy deliverance from him, for in man is no help. What man will dare face what is not mortal?”
A deep voice behind the startled group answered, “I will!”