their blazing homes, while men gnashed their teeth, enraged that they were powerless to prevent the disaster. At length the ruffian band departed, carrying their booty with them.
Scarcely had they passed from view before the men were out and across the drawbridge, and on to fight the flames. Some of the cottages were too far consumed to be saved, but after the flames were extinguished a few were found
that could be used with some thatching.
Among these was the house of Jacques D’Arc.
CHAPTER IV
THE AFTERMATH
“Sweet she is in words and deeds,
Fair and white as the white rose. ”
“La Mystère du Siège d’Orléans. ”
There was anguish in the eyes of Isabeau Romée as she crossed the drawbridge
from the castle, and went slowly with her children to the ruined village. Other women about her wept, or gave vent to their despair in loud outcries; hers was
the deeper grief that knows not tears.
And in what a state of desolation was the hamlet and its surroundings! The men-
at-arms had plundered, ravaged, and burnt. Unable to exact ransom from the inhabitants, because of their timely arrival at the castle, it was evidently the design of the marauders to destroy what they could not carry off. The newly sown fields were trampled; the blossoming orchards blasted; those houses that had been rescued from the flames were badly damaged, and the entire village and its neighbour, Greux, had been sacked and pillaged. Upon what were the people to live? That was the question that confronted them. Jacques D’Arc cam
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to his wife as she stood in front of their cottage.
“The house still remains to us, Isabeau,” he said comfortingly. “The roof can be thatched so that we can soon be in it again. We will send to our market town of Neufchâteau for bread and grain. Did you look well to the money?”
“Yes, Jacques.” Isabeau took a bag from the folds of her gown, and handed it to him. It contained a small sum of money hoarded against just such an emergency
as the present. Her husband took it with brightening countenance.
“Come now, ’tis not so bad,” he said. “We will send at once for the grain, that the fields may be resown without delay; and for bread that we may live. We shall do well.”
“Yes,” agreed his wife, but she looked at her children. And then, as though with that look her woe must forth, she turned upon him in a passionate outburst: “In all your life, Jacques, in all my life we have known naught but war. Must my children too live always in the midst of strife? Must they too sow for soldiers to reap? Build, for men-at-arms to burn? Be hunted like wild beasts, and killed if they cannot pay ransom? Must they too count on nothing; neither their goods, nor their lives? Oh, Jacques, must France always be torn by war?”
“You are beside yourself with sorrow, Isabeau,” chided Jacques but the gentleness of his tone took away the sting of the words. “’Tis no time to give way now. There is much to be done. We can but take up our burden, and do the
best we can. With God lies the issue.”
“True, Jacques, true.” Isabeau pulled herself together sharply. “You are right; ’tis no time for grief. There is indeed much to be done. Jeanne, do you take your little sister, and care for her while I see if aught of our stores has been overlooked. Many will there be for whom provision must be made.”
With this the brave woman gave the little Catherine into Jeanne’s keeping, while she went into the cottage. Resolutely winking back her own tears Jeanne took the weeping little girl to a tree, and sat down under it, drawing the child into her lap.
Pierre followed her, Jacquemin and Jean going with their father to help him.
Soon Mengette and Hauviette joined the D’Arc children, and presently all the boys and girls of the village found their way there, comforting each other and the little ones in their charge in whispers. Childhood is elastic, and soon under the familiar companionship fright wore away, and the young folks began to relate their experiences in subdued but excited tones.
“I saw a black Burgundian as big as a giant,” declared Colin. “Had I had a crossbow and bolt I would have killed him.”
“Pouf! You were afraid just as the rest of us were,” uttered Pierre scornfully.
“Why, even the men did not try to fight, so many were the enemy. And if they
could do naught neither could you.”
“The men could not fight without weapons, Pierre,” spoke Jeanne quickly. “They
had none in the fields.”
“Myself, I shall be a man-at-arms,” went on Colin boastingly. “I shall wear armour, and ride a horse; and I shall go into France to help drive the Godons[4]
out of it.”
Jeanne looked at him with sparkling eyes.
“Yes,” she cried eagerly. “’Tis what should be done. Oh! I would like to go too.
Why do they not stay in their own country?”
“You?” Colin began to laugh. “You are a girl, Jeanne D’Arc, and girls go not to war. They can not fight.”
“I could.” A resolute light came into the little maid’s eyes, and her lips set in a firm line. “I know I could.” At this the others joined Colin in his laughter, and the boy cried gaily:
“I should like to see you. Oh, wouldn’t the Godons run when they saw you?”
Jeanne opened her lips to reply, but just then she heard the voice of her mother calling to her. So, shaking her finger at Colin, she rose obediently and went toward the cottage. Near the door stood her father gazing intently at a long rod that he held in his hand. So absorbed was he that he did not heed her approach.
The little girl touched him lightly on the arm.
“What is it, father?” she asked gently. “Are you grieving over the cattle and the goods?”
Her father looked up with a start.
“I grieve, yes, my little one. But ’tis not so much about present ills as a future burden which we must bear. I know not how it is to be met. This rod, as you know, is the taille stick, and in July comes the tax which I must collect from Domremy and Greux. I like not to think about it, so heavy will it seem after the misfortune that has come upon these two villages.”
There were many duties that fell to the village elder (doyen), especially in troubled times. It was for him to summon the mayor and the aldermen to the council meetings, to cry the decrees, to command the watch day and night, to guard the prisoners. It was for him also to collect taxes, rents, and feudal dues.
An ungrateful office at any time, but one that would be doubly so in a ruined country. Jeanne knew that it was her father’s duty to collect the taxes, but she had not known that it might be a distasteful task. Now she looked curiously at the stick.
“Why does it have the notches upon it, father?” she asked.
