So his coming back was his first
triumph, and the day was memorable in his life. While the army rested
there was no work for him, and he had returned in order to rest
himself; but he had nothing of immediate importance to report to the
leaders, and he bade his men find out his baggage among the heaps of
packs that had been unloaded from the general train of mules, and to
pitch his tent near those of his old comrades on the march.
While Dunstan and Alric were obeying his orders, he sat on his saddle
on the ground, with his weary horse standing beside him, his nose
plunged into a canvas bag half full of oats. Gilbert looked on in a
sort of mournfully indifferent silence. Everything he saw was familiar,
and yet it all seemed very far away and divided from him by weeks of
danger and hard riding. The vast crowd that had followed him had begun
to disperse as soon as it was known that he was not going before the
King, and only three or four hundred of the more curious stood and
moved in groups around the open space where the tent was being pitched.
Many of his acquaintance came and spoke to him, and he rose and shook
their hands and spoke a few words to each; but none of the greater
nobles who had sought him out after he had saved the Queen took any
pains to find him now, though they and their followers owed him much.
The praise of the multitude and their ringing cheers had been pleasant
enough to hear, but he had expected something else, and a cold
disappointment took possession of his heart as he sat in his tent some
hours later, considering, with Dunstan, the miserable condition and
poor appearance of his arms and the impossibility of procuring anything
better.
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