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The White Company: Spanish

Sir Nigel and the White Company, four hundred strong, joined Edward's army and marched into Spain. Sent ahead to reconnoiter, they stole up near a Spanish camp and did some small deeds. Hordle John captured a Spanish knight by the foot and held him for a ransom. Later they were surprised by a large force of cavalry. On a rocky hill they made their last stand. "To your arms, men!" roared Sir Nigel. "Shoot while you may, and then out swords and let us live or die together."

Sir Nigel sent Alleyne for help. Sorely wounded, he lashed himself to his horse, broke through the Spanish lines, and, nearly dead, reached the English. When the rescue party arrived and drove away the Spaniards the flag still waved, with only John and six archers around it. All the rest were either killed or taken prisoner.

The fame of the White Company traveled far. Alleyne was knighted, John got five thousand crowns ransom, and the two hurried back to England. Maude Loring, hearing that every one of the company had been killed, had entered a nunnery, but Alleyne took her home and they were married. Sir Nigel and Aylward were taken prisoners, but escaped, seized a small coaster, and came home with a rich cargo. Aylward wed the dame Eliza, John became Alleyne's squire, and they all lived many years filled with honor and happiness and laden with every blessing.

Sir Nigel rode no more to the wars, but he found his way to every jousting within thirty miles. Twice again Sir Alleyne Edricson fought in France, and came back each time laden with honors.

DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS lived in many houses and some of them were ugly. But to him they were all homes. He was happiest perhaps in Devonshire Terrace, London, and at Gadshill Place in Kent, where he worked and entertained with a furious energy.

He had to force himself to begin a novel, for the work of starting was a veritable torment to him. But once the first chapter was finished he wrote with sheer delight. He would sit at his desk for hours, living with his characters as his pen went back and forth across the white paper. After these arduous confinements he found relaxation in walking, prowling for hours through London streets or beating his way against the lashing winds along the Kentish coast.

He loved his homes and he loved England, but he also loved to travel. He found out-of-the-way and quaint villages in England where he settled for weeks at a time, but he often ran across the Channel to the Continent and sometimes made long stays in Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. Twice he journeyed far in the United States, in days when luxury in travel was hardly known and when only those who really loved new scenes undertook such hardships. Much as he enjoyed these restless flittings to other lands and his prolonged lingerings in such favored places as Genoa or Lausanne, he was ever eager to be back in England, either in grimy, pulsating London or in the hedge-bordered lanes of Kent. It was amid these scenes that his brain worked best. Episode after episode in his greatest novels flashed vividly into his mind as he tramped by night through London or by day through rural Kent.