 6 How Samkin Aylward wagered his feather-bed He was a middle-sized man of most massive and robust build, with an arching chest and extraordinary breadth of shoulder. His shaven face was as brown as a hazelnut, tanned and dried by the weather, with harsh, well-marked features which were not improved by a long white scar which stretched from the corner of his left nostril to the angle of the jaw. His eyes were bright and searching, with something of menace and of authority in their quick glitter, and his mouth was firm-set and hard as befitted one who was one to set his face against danger. A straight sword by his side and a painted longbow jutting over his shoulder proclaimed his profession, while his starred brigadine of chain-mail and his dinted steel cap showed that he was no holiday soldier, but one who was even now fresh from the wars. A white surcoat with the lion of St. George in red upon the centre covered his broad breast, while a sprig of new-plucked room at the side of his head-gear gave a touch of gaiety and grace to his grim war-worn equipment. Ha! he cried, blinking like an owl in the sudden glare. Good even to you comrades! How, la, a woman by my soul! And at an instant he had clipped Dame Eliza round the waist and was kissing her violently. His eye happening to wander upon the maid, however, he instantly abandoned the mistress and danced off after the other, who scurried in confusion up one of the ladders, and dropped the heavy trap-door upon her pursuer. He then turned back and saluted the landlady once more with the utmost relish and satisfaction. Lapetites frightened, said he, ah, c'est l'amour, l'amour! Curse this trick of French which will stick to my throat! I must wash it out with some good English ale. By my hilt, camarade, there is no drop of French blood in my body, and I am a true English bowman, somekin alewood by name. And I tell you, mes amis, that it warms my very heart-roots to set my feet on the dear old land once more. When I came off the galley at Hithe, this very day, I down on my bones, and I kissed the good-brown earth, as I kissed thee now, my belle, for it was eight long years since I had seen it. The very smell of it seemed life to me. But where are my six rascals? All are there, en avant! At the order, six men, dressed as common drudges, marched solemnly into the room, each bearing a huge bundle upon his head. They formed in military line, while the soldier stood in front of them, with stern eyes checking off their several packages. Number one, ah, French for the bed with two counterpains of white cendol, said he. Here worthy, sir, answered the first of the bearers, laying a great package down in the corner. Number two, seven L's of red turkey-cloth, and nine L's of cloth of gold. Put it down by the other. Good-day, I pretty give each of these men a botrine of wine, or a jack-of-ail. Three, a full piece of white gino and velvet, with twelve L's of purple silk. Now, rascal, there is dirt on the hem! Thou hast brushed it against some wall, coquette! Not I most worthy, sir," cried the carrier, shrinking away from the fierce eyes of the bowman. I say, yes, dog! By the three kings I have seen a man gasp out his last breath for less. Had you gone through the pain and unease that I have done to earn these things, he would be at more care. I swear by my ten finger-bones that there is not one of them that hath not cost its weight in French blood. Four, an incense-boat, a ewer of silver, a gold-buckle, and a cope, worked in pearls. I found them, camarade, the church of Sandeney in the harrying of Narbonne, and I took them away with me lest they fall into the hands of the wicked. Five, a cloak of fur turned up with miniver, a gold goblet with stand and cover, and a box of rose-coloured sugar. See that you lay them together. Six, a box of moneys, three pounds of limousine goldwork, a pair of boots silver-tagged, and lastly a store of naping-linen. So the tally is complete. Here is a groter-piece, and you may go. Go wither, worthy sir, asked one of the carriers. Wither? To the devil, if you will! What is it to me? Now, my bell, to supper! A pair of cold capons, a mattress of brawn, or what you will, with a flask or two of the right gaskony. I have crowns in my pouch for my sweet, and I mean to spend them. Bring in the wine while the food is dressing. Buvor, my brave lads, ye shall each empty a stoop with me. Here was an offer, which the company in an English inn, that or any other date, are slow to refuse. The flagons were regathered, and came back with the white foam dripping over their edges. Two of the woodmen and three of the labourers drank their portions off hurriedly and trooped off together, for their homes were distant and the hour late. The others, however, drew closer, leaving the place of honour to the right of the gleamon, to the free-handed newcomer. He had thrown off his steel cap, his brigadine, and had placed them with his sword, his quiver, and his painted longbow, on the top of his varied heap of blunder in the corner. Now, with his thick and somewhat bowed legs stretched in front of the blaze, his green jerk in thrown open, and a great quart pot held in his corded fist, he looked the picture of comfort and of good fellowship. His hard-set face had softened, and the thick crop of crisp brown curls, which had been hidden by his helmet, grew low upon his massive neck. He might have been forty years of age, though hard toil and harder pleasure had left their grim marks upon his features. Alan had ceased painting his Pied Merlin, and sat, brush in hand, staring with open eyes at a type of man so strange and so unlike any whom he had met. Men had been good or had been bad in his catalogue, but here was a man who was fierce one instant, and gentle the next, with a curse on his lips and a smile in his eye. What was to be made of such a man as that? It chanced that the soldier looked up and saw the questioning glance which the young clerk threw upon him. He raised his flag and drank to him with a merry flash of his white teeth. "'Atois, mon garçon!' he cried. "'Has surely never seen a man at arms that thou should stare so?' "'I never have,' said Alan frankly. "'Though I have often heard talk of their deeds.' "'By my hilt!' cried the other. "'If you would across the narrow sea you would find them as thick as bees at a tea-hole. Could not shoot a bolt down any street of Bordeaux, I warrant, but you would pink Archer, Squire, or Knight.' "'There are more breast-plates than gabidines to be seen, I promise you.' "'And where got you all these pretty things?' asked Hordle John, pointing at the heap in the corner. "'Where there is much more waiting for any brave lad to pick it up. Where a good man can always earn a good wage, and where he needn't look upon no man as he's paymaster, but just reach his hand out and help himself. "'I, it is a goodly and a proper life. And here I drink to mine old comrades, and the saints be with them. A rouse altogether, mes enfants, and a pain of my displeasure, to S'Claude Latour and the White Company.' "'S'Claude Latour and the White Company,' shouted the Travellers, draining off their goblets. "'Well quaft, nebrave. It is for me to fill your cups again, since you have drained them to my dear lads of the white jerkin. Holà, mon orge, bring wine and ale. How runs the old stave? We'll drink all together to the grey goose-feather, and the land where the grey goose flew.' He roared out the catch in a harsh, unmusical voice, and ended with a shout of laughter, "'I trust that I'm a better bowman than a minstrel,' said he. "'Me thinks I have some remembrance of the lilt,' remarked the gleaman, running his fingers over the strings, hoping that it will give the new offence most holy, sir, with a vicious snap at Allen, and with the kind permit of the company I will even venture upon it.' Many a time in the after-days, Allen Edrickson seemed to see the scene, for all that so many which was stranger and more stirring, was soon to crowd upon him. The fat red-faced gleaman, the listening group, the archer with upraised finger beating in time to the music, and the huge sprawling figure of hordal John, all thrown into red light and black shadow by the flickering fire in the centre. Memory was to come often lovingly back to it. At the time he was lost in admiration, at the deft way in which the jongler disguised the loss of his two missing strings, and the lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad of the outland bowman, which ran in some such fashion as this. What of the bow? The bow was made in England, of true wood, of yew wood, the wood of English bows. So men who were free loved the old yew tree, and the land where the yew tree grows. What of the cord? The cord was made in England, a rough cord, a tough cord, a cord that bowman love. So we'll drain our jacks to the English flax and the land where the hemp was wove. What of the shaft? The shaft was cut in England, a long shaft, a strong shaft, barbed and trim and true. So we'll drink all together to the grey goose feather and the land where the grey goose flew. What of the men? The men were bred in England, the bowman, the yewman, the lads of Dailand fell. Here's to you and to you, to the hearts that are true, and the land where the true hearts dwell. Well, sung by my hilt, shouted the archer, in high delight. Many a night have I heard that song, both in the old wartime and after, in the days of the white company when Black Simon of Norwich would lead the stave, and four hundred of the best bowman that ever drew string would come roaring in upon the chorus. I have seen old John Hawquid, the same who has led half the company into Italy, stand laughing in his beard as he heard it, until his plates rattled again. But to get the full smack of it, you must yourselves be English bowman, and be far off upon outland soil. Whilst the song had been singing, Dame Eliza and the maid had placed a board across two trestles, and had laid upon it the knife, the spoon, the salt, the trencher of bread, and finally the smoking dish which held the savoury supper. The archer settled himself to it, like one who had known what it was to find good food scarce, but his tongue still went as merrily as his teeth. It passes me. He cried, How all you lusty fellows can bide scratching your backs at home when there are such doings over the seas. Look at me. What have I to do? It is but the eye to the cord, the cord to the shaft, and the shaft to the mark. There is the whole song of it. It is but what you do yourselves for pleasure upon a Sunday evening at the parish village Butts. And the wage? asked the labourer. You see what the wage brings, he answered. I eat of the best, and I drink deep. I treat my friend, and I ask no friend to treat me. I clap a silk gown on my girl's back. Never a night's lady shall be better betrimmed and betrinketed. How of all that, mon garçon? And how of the heap of trifles that you can see for yourselves in yonder corner? They are from the South French, every one, upon whom I have been making war. By my hilt, camarade, I think that I may let my plunder speak for itself. It seems indeed to be a goodly service, said the tooth-drawer. Chet bleu! Yes indeed! Then there is the chance of a ransom. Why, look you, in the affair at Brignet some four years back, when the company slew James of Bourbon and put his army to the sword, there was scarcer manavars who had not count, baron, or knight. Peter Carsdale, who was but a common country lout, newly brought over, with the English fleas still hopping under his doublet, laid his great hands upon Signe Amarie de Châtonville, who owns half Piccadilly, and had five thousand crowns out of him, with his horse and harness. It is true that a French wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it, but what then? By the twang of string it would be a bad thing if money was not made to be spent, and how better than on a woman! Amarie de Châtonville! It would indeed be a bad thing if we had not our brave archers to bring wealth and kindly customs into the country. Quote Dame Eliza, on whom the soldiers free and open ways had made a deep impression. D'attwa, macherie! said he, with his hand over his heart. O la, there is lapétit peeping from behind the door! Attwa, o seam, apétit! Aren't you? But the lass has a good colour. There is one thing fair, sir, said the Cambridge student in his piping voice, which I would feign that you would make more clear. As I understand it, there was piece-made the town of Bretigny some six years back between our most gracious monarch and the king of the French. This being so, it seems most passing strange that you should talk so loudly of war, and of companies where there is no quarrel between the French and us. Meaning that I lie! said the archer, laying down his knife. Ah, me heaven forfend! cried the student hastily. Magna est veritas, said Rara, which means in the Latin tongue that archers are all honourable men. I come to you seeking knowledge, for it is my trade to learn. I fear that you are apprentice to that trade! Quote the soldier, for there is no child over the water, but could answer what you ask. Know then that, though there may be peace between our own provinces and the French, yet within the marches of France there is always war, for the country is much divided against itself, and it is furthermore harried by bands of flayers, skinners, brabissons, ta-de-venue, and the rest of them. When every man's grip is on his neighbour's throat, and every five-suit piece of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom he will, it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys could not pick up a living. Now that Sir John Hawkewood hath gone with the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham Woodmen into the service of the Marquay of Malfora to fight against the Lord of Milan, there are but ten score of us left, yet I trust that I may be able to bring some back with me to fill the ranks of the White Company. By the tooth of Peter it would be a bad thing if I could not muster many a hampishy man who would be ready to strike in under the red flag of St. George, and the more so if Sennigal law-ring of Christchurch should don Hobock once more and take the lead of us. Ah! you would indeed be in luck then, quote a woodman, for it is said that, setting aside the Prince, and may have, good old Sir John Chandos, there was not in the whole army a man of such tried courage. It is sooth every word of it, the archer answered. I have seen him with these two eyes in a strickener field, and never did man carry himself better. Oh, dear, yes, you would not credit it to look at him, or to hearken to his soft voice, but from the sailing from Orwell down to the foray to Paris, and that is clear, twenty years, there was not a skirmish, onfall, sally, bushment, escalado, or battle, but Sennigal was in the heart of it. I go now to Christchurch with a letter to him from Sir Claude Latour, to ask him if he will take the place of Sir John Hawquod, and there is more chance that he will, if I bring one or two likely men at my heels. What say you, woodman? Will leave the Bucks to Lucie Shaft at a nobler mark? The Forrester shook his head. I have wife and child at Emory Down, quote he. I will not leave them for such a venture. You then, young sir? asked the archer. Nay, I am a man of peace, said Alan Edrickson. Besides, I have other work to do. Pest! growled the soldier, striking his flagon on the board until the dishes danced again. What in the name of the devil hath come over the folk? Why sit yore moping by the fireside like crows run a dead horse, when there is man's work to be done within a few short leagues of ye? Out upon yore is a set of laggards and hang-backs. By my hilt I believe that the men of England are all in France already, and that what is left behind are in sooth the women dressed up in their poltux and hosen. Archer, quote Hordle John, you have lied more than once and more than twice, for which, and also because I see much in you to dislike, I am sorely tempted to lay you upon your back. By my hilt, then, I have found a man at last, shouted the bowman, and, for God, you are a better man than I take you for, if you can lay me on my back, mon garçon. I have won the ram more times than there are toes to my feet, and for seven long years I have found no man in the company who could make my jerk in dusty. We have had enough bobbinson boasting, said Hordle John, rising and throwing off his doublet. I will show you that there are better men left in England than ever went thieving to France. Passe Dieu! cried the Archer, loosing his jerk in, and eyeing his foe-man over with a keen glance of one who was a judge of manhood. I have only once before seen such a body of a man. By your leave, my red-headed friend, I should be right sorry to exchange buffets with you, and I will allow that there is no man in the company who would pull against you on a rope. So let that be solved to your pride. On the other hand, I should judge that you have led a life of ease for some months back, and that my muscle is harder than your own. I am ready to wager upon myself against you, if you are not a Theod. A Theod, thou laden, growled Big John, I never saw the face yet of a man that I was a Theod of. Come out, and we shall see who is the better man. But the wager! I have not to wager. Come out for the love and the lust of the thing. Not to wager! cried the soldier. Why you have that which I covered above all things. It is that big body of thine that I am after. See now, Mont-Garçois. I have a French feather-bed there, which I have been in pain to keep these years back. I had it at the sacking of Isidoun, but the king himself hath not such a bed. If you throw me, it is thine. But if I throw you, then you are under a vow to take Beau and Bill and high with me to France, there to serve in the White Company, as long as we be enrolled. A fair wager! cried all the travellers, moving back their benches and trestles, so as to give fair field for the wrestlers. Then you may bid farewell to your bed-soldier, said Hodel John. Nay, I shall keep the bed, and I shall have you to France in spite of your teeth, and you shall live to thank me for it. How shall it be, then, Mont-Garçois? Call her an elbow, or close-lock, or catch how you can. To the devil do your tricks, said John, opening and shutting his great red hands. Stand forth and let me clip thee. Shunt clip me as best you can, then, quote the archer, moving out into the open space, and keeping a most wary eye upon his opponent. He had thrown off his green jerkin, and his chest was covered only by a pink silk jupin or undershirt, cut low in the neck and sleeveless. Hodel John was stripped from his waist upwards, and his huge body, with his great muscles swelling out like the gnarled roots of an oak, towered high above the soldier. The other, however, though near a foot shorter, was a man of great strength, and there was a gloss upon his white skin, which was wanting in the heavier limbs of the renegade monk. He was quick on his feet, too, and skilled at the game, so that it was clear from the poise of head and shine of eye that he counted the chances to be in his favour. It would have been hard that night, through the whole length of England, to set up a finer pair in face of each other. Big John stood waiting in the centre, with a sullen, menacing eye, and his red hair in a bristle, while the archer paced lightly and swiftly to the right and the left, with cropped knee and hands advanced. Then with a sudden dash, so swift and fierce that the eye could scarce follow it, he flew in upon his man and locked his leg round him. It was a grip that, between men of equal strength, would mean a fall, but Hordele John tore him off from him, as he might have rapped and hurled him across the room, so that his head cracked up against the wooden wall. Ma foie! cried the bowman, passing his fingers through his curls. You were not far from the feather-bed then, mongar! A little more, and this good hostel would have a new window! Nothing daunted, he approached his man once more, but this time with more caution than before. With a quick faint he threw the other off his guard, and then bounding upon him through his legs round his waist, and his arms round his bull-neck, in the hope of bearing him to the ground with a sudden shock. With a bellow of rage, Hordele John squeezed him limp in his huge arms, and then, picking him up, cast him down upon the floor, with a force which might well have splintered a bone or two, had not the archer, with the most perfect coolness, clung to the other's forearms to break his fall. As it was, he dropped upon his feet and kept his balance, though it sent a jar through his frame, which set every jointer creaking. He bounded back from his perilous foe-man, but the other, heated by the bout, rushed madly after him, and so gave the practised wrestler the very vantage for which he had planned. As Big John flung himself upon him, the archer ducked under the great red hands that clutched for him, and catching his man round the thighs, hurled him over his shoulder, helped as much by his own mad rush as by the trained strength of the heave. To Alan's eye it was as if John had taken unto himself wings and flown. As he hurtled through the air with giant limbs revolving, the lad's heart was in his mouth, for surely no man ever yet had such a fall and came scatheless out of it. In truth, hardy as the man was, his neck had been assuredly broken had he not pitched head first onto the very midriff of the drunken artist who was slumbering so peacefully in the corner, all unaware of these stirring doings. The luckless limner thus suddenly brought out from his dreams, sat up with a piercing yell, while Hortle John bounded back into the circle almost as rapidly as he'd left it. One more fall by all the saints! he cried, throwing out his arms. Not I, quote the archer, pulling on his clothes. I have come well out of the business. I would sooner wrestle with the great bear of Navarre. It was a trick, cried John. I was it. By my ten finger-bones it's a trick that will add a proper man to the ranks of the company. Oh, for that, said the other, I count it not a fly, for I had promised myself a good hour ago that I should go with thee, since the life seems to be a goodly and proper one. Yet I would feign have the feather-bed. I doubt it not, mon ami, quote the archer, going back to his tankard. But here's to thee, lad, and may we be good comrades to each other. But, ho-la! what is it that ails our friend of the wrothful face? The unfortunate limner had been sitting up, rubbing himself roofily, and staring about with a vacant gaze, which showed that he neither knew where he was, nor what had occurred to him. Suddenly, however, a flash of intelligence had come over his sudden features, and he rose and staggered for the door. Where the hail, he said, in a hoarse whisper, shaking a warning finger to the company. Oh, holy virgin, where the hail! Unslapping his hand to his injury, he flitted off into the darkness, amid a shout of laughter in which the vanquished joined as merrily as the victor. The remaining forester and the two labourers were also ready for the road, and the rest of the company turned to the blankets which Dame Eliza and the maid had laid out for them upon the floor. Alan, weary with the unwanted excitement of the day, was soon in a deep slumber, broken only by fleeting visions of twittering legs, cursing beggars, black robbers, and the many strange folk whom he had met at the pied Merlin. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of the White Company This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Clive Catterall. The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter 7 How the Three Comrades Journeyed Through the Woodlands At early dawn the country inn was all alive, for it was rare indeed that an hour of daylight would be wasted at a time when lighting was so scarce and dear. Indeed, early as it was when Dame Eliza began to stir, it seemed that others could be earlier still. For the door was a jar, and the learned student of Cambridge had taken himself off, with a mind which was too intent upon the high things of antiquity to stoop to consider the forpents which he owed for bed and board. It was the shrill outcry of the landlady when she found her loss, and the clucking of the hens which had streamed in through the open door that first broke in upon the slumbers of the tired wayfarers. Once afoot it was not long before the company began to disperse. A sleek mule with red trappings was brought round from some neighbouring shed for the physician, and he ambled away with much dignity upon his road to Southampton. The tooth-drawer and the gleaman called for a cup of small ale apiece, and started off together for Ringwood Fair, the old jongleur looking very yellow in the eye, and swollen in the face after his overnight potations. The archer, however, who had drunk more than any man in the room, was as merry as a greg, and having kissed the matron and chased the maid up the ladder once more, he went out to the brook and came back with the water dripping from his face and hair. "'Hola, my man of peace!" he cried to Allen. "'Wither are you bent this morning?' "'To Minstead,' quote he. My brother Simon Edrickson is sockman there, and I go to bide with him for a while. I prithee, let me have my score, good dame.' "'Score indeed!' cried she, standing with upraised hands in front of the panel on which Allen had worked the night before. "'Say, rather what it is that I owe thee, good youth! Aye, this is indeed a pied Merlin, with a leveret under its claws, as I am a living woman. Buy the rude of Waltham, but thy touch is deft and dainty. And see the red eye of it!' cried the maid. Aye, and the open beak. And the ruffled wing. Edit hodl, John. "'By my hilt!' cried the archer. It is indeed the very bird itself.' The young clerk flushed with pleasure. At this chorus of praise, rude and indiscriminate indeed, and yet so much heartier and less grudging than any which he had ever heard from the critical brother Jerome or the short-spoken abbot. There was, it would seem, great kindness, as well as great wickedness in this world of which he had heard so little that was good. His hostess would hear nothing of his paying, either for bed or for board, while the archer and hodl, John, placed a hand upon either shoulder and led him off to the board, where some smoking fish, a dish of spinach, and a jug of milk, were laid out for their breakfast. "'I should not be surprised to learn, Moll Camerad,' said the soldier, as he heaped a slice of fish upon Allen's trencher of bread, that you could read written things, since you are so ready with your brushes and pigments. It would be a shame to the good brothers of Beaulieu if I could not,' he answered, seeing that I have been their clerk this ten years back. The bowman looked at him with great respect. "'Think of that,' said he, and ye with not a hair to your face and a skin like a girl. I can shoot three hundred and fifty paces with my little popper there, and four hundred and twenty with a great war-bow, yet I can make nothing of this, nor read my own name if you were to set some ale wood up against me. In the whole company there was only one man who could read, and he fell down well at the taking of Ventador, which proves that the thing is not suited to a soldier, though most needful to a clerk. I can make some show at it,' said Big John, though I was scarce long enough among the monks to catch the whole trick of it. Here, then, is something to drive on,' quote the archer, pulling a square of parchment from the inside of his tunic. It was tied securely with a broad band of purple silk, and firmly sealed at either end with a large red seal. John poured long and earnestly over the inscription upon the back, with his brows bent as one who bears up against great mental strain. "'Not having read much of late,' he said, I am loath to say too much about what this may be. Some may say one thing and some another, just as one bowman loves the you, and a second will not shoot save with the ash. To me, by the length and look of it, I should judge this to be a verse from one of the psalms.' The bowman shook his head. It is scarce, likely, he said, that Sir Claude Latour should send me all the way across seas with naught more weighty than a psalm verse. You have clean overshot the butts this time, mon camarade. Give it to the little one. I will wager my further bed that he makes more sense of it. "'Why, it is written in the French tongue,' said Alan. And in a right-clarkly hand. This is how it runs. A le mou poisson et mou honorable chevalier, ce Nigel Loring de Christ-Judges, a dison très fidèle ami, ce Claude Latour, Capitaine de la compagnie blanche, Châtelin de Biscar, grand-seigneur de mon château, vavasseur de le renom gaston, compte de foi, tenant les droits de la haute justice, de la milieu et de la basse. Which signifies, in our speech, to the very powerful and very honourable knight, Sir Nigel Loring of Christ-Judges, from his very faithful friend, Sir Claude Latour, captain of the white company, Châtelin of Biscar, grand-lord of mon château, and vassal to the renowned gaston, compte de foi, who holds the rights of the high justice, the middle, and the low. Look at that now, cried the bowman in triumph. That is just what he would have said. I can see now that it is even so, said John, examining the parchment again, though I scarce understand this high, middle, and low. By my hilt you would understand it if you were Jacques Bonhomme. The low justice means that you may fleece him, and the middle that you may torture him, and the high that you may slay him. That's about the truth of it. But this is the letter which I am to take, and since the platter is clean, it is time that we trust up and wear a foot. You come with me, Montgrosjean. And as to you, little one, where did you sail, you journeyed? To Minstead. Ah, yes, I know this forest country well, though I was born myself, and the hundred of E's born, in the rape of Chichester, hard by the village of Midhurst. Yet I have not a word to say against the Hampton men, for there are no better comrades or truer arches in the whole company than some who learn to lose the string in these very parts. We shall travel round with you to Minstead, lad, seeing that it is little out of our way. I am ready, said Alan, right pleased at the thought of such company upon the road. So I am not I. I must store my plunder at the Sins since the hostess is an honest woman. Hola, ma chérie, I wish to leave you my goldwork, my velvet, my silk, my feather-bed, my incense-boat, my ewer, my napping linen, or all the rest of it. I take only the money in a linen bag, and the box of rose-coloured sugar, which is a gift from my captain to the lady lawing. Wildcard, my treasure for me, I shall put it in the safest loft good-archer. Come when you may, you shall find it ready for you. Now, there is a true friend, cried the bowman, taking her hand. There is a bon amie. English land and English women, they I, and French wine and French plunder. I shall be back an' ol' mon ange. I am a lonely man, my sweet-ing, and I must settle some-day when the wars are over and done. May help you and I. Ah, méchant, méchant! There is lapétit peeping from behind the door. Now, John, the sun is over the trees. You must be brisker than this when the bugleman blows bows and bills. I have been waiting this time back," said Hortle John, gruffly. Then we must be off. Adieu, ma vie! The two-leaves rush shall settle the score and buy some ribbons against the next commiss. And do not forget, Sam Ailwood, for his heart shall ever be thine alone, and thine ma pétit. So, march on, and may St. Julian grant us good quarters elsewhere. The sun had risen over Ashhurst and Denney Woods, and was shining brightly, though the eastern wind had a sharp flavour to it, and the leaves were still flickering thickly from the trees. In the high street of Lindhurst the wayfarers had to pick their way, for the little town was crowded with the guardsmen, grooms, and yeoman-prickers who were attached to the king's hunt. The king himself was staying at Castle Mellwood, but several of his sweet had been compelled to seek such quarters as they might find in the wooden or wattle-and-dorb cottages of the village. Here and there a small escutcheon, seen from a glassless window, marked the night's lodging of a knight or baron. These coats of arms could be read, where a scroll would be meaningless, and the bowman, like most men of his age, was well versed in the common symbols of heraldry. "'There is the Saracen's head of Sir Bernard Broccas,' quote he, I saw him last at the ruffle of Poitiers some ten years back, where he bore himself like a man. He is the master of the king's horse, and can sing a rite jovial stave, though in that he cannot come night as a John Chandos, who is first at the board or in the saddle. Three markedlets on a field, as ye. That must be one of the Luttrels. By the crescent upon it it should be the second son of old Sir Hugh, who had a bolt through his ankle at the intaking of Romorantin. He, having rushed into the fray, ere his squire had time to clasp his solerate to his grieve. There, too, is the hackle, which is the old device of the de Brays. I have served under Sir Thomas de Bray, who was as jolly as a pie, and a lusty swordsman, until he got too fat for his harness. So the archer gossiped, as the three wayfarers threaded their way among the stamping horses, the busy grooms, and the knots of pages and squires, who disputed over the merits of their masters, horses, and dearhounds. As they passed the old church, which stood upon a mound at the left-hand side of the village street, the door was flung open, and a stream of worshippers wound down the sloping path, coming from the morning mass, all chattering like a cloud of jays. Allen bent knee and doft hat at the sight of the open door. But ere he had finished an arve, his comrades were out of sight, round the curve in the path, and he had to run to ever take them. What, he said, not one would have prayer before God's own open house, how could he hope for his blessing upon the day? My friend, said Hordle John, I have prayed so much during the last two months, not only during the day, but at matins, lords, and the like, when I could scarce keep my head upon my shoulders for nodding, that I feel I have somewhat over-prayed myself. How could a man have too much religion? cried Allen earnestly. It is the one thing that availeth. A man is but a beast, as he lives from day to day, eating and drinking, breathing and sleeping. It is only when he raises himself, and concerns himself with the immortal spirit within him, that he becomes, in the very truth, a man. Be-think ye how sad a thing it would be that the blood of the Redeemer should be spilled to no purpose. Bless the lad, if he doth not blush like any girl, and yet preach like the whole College of Cardinals, cried the archer. In truth, I blushed that any one so weak and so unworthy as I should try to teach another that which he finds it so passing hard to follow himself. Prudently said Mont-Garçon, touching that same slaying of the Redeemer, it was a bad business. O good Padre in France read to us from a scroll the whole truth of the matter. The soldiers came upon him in the garden. In truth, these apostles of his may have been holy men, but they were of no greater count as men at arms. There was one, indeed, Sir Peter, who smote out like a true man, but unless he is belied he did but clip a violet's ear, which is no very nightly deed. By these ten finger-bones had I been there with black Simon of Norwich, and but one score picked men of the company. We had held them in play. Could we do no more? We at least filled the false night, Sir Judas, so full of English arrows that he would curse the day that ever he came on such an errand. The unclarke smiled at his companion's earnestness. Had he wished help, he said, he could have summoned legions of archangels from heaven, so what need had he of your poor bow and arrow? Besides, b'think you of his own words, that those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword. And how could man die better? asked the archer, if I had my wish it would be to fall so, not mark you in any mere skirmish of the company, but in a stricken field with a great lion banner waving over us, and the red oryflam in front, amid the shouting of my fellows and the twanging of the strings. But let it be sword, lance, or bolt that strikes me down, for I should think it's shame to die from an iron ball of the fire-drake, or bombard, or any such unsoldierly weapon which is only fitted to scare babes with its foolish noise and smoke. I have heard much even in the quiet cloisters of these new and dreadful engines, Quoth Allen. It is said, though I can scarce bring myself to believe it, that they will send a ball twice as far as a bowman can shoot his shaft, and with such force as to break through armour of proof. True enough, my lad, but while the armourer is thrusting in his devil's dust, and dropping his ball and lighting his flambeau, I can very easily lose six shafts, or eight maybe, so he hath no great vantage after all. Yet I will not deny that in the intaking of a town it is well to have a good store of bombards. I am told that at Calais they may dince in the wall that a man might put his head into. But surely, comrades, someone who is grievously hurt hath passed along this road before us. All along the woodland track there did indeed run a scattered, straggling trail of blood marks, sometimes in single drops, and in other places in broad, ruddy gouts smudged over the dead leaves or crimsoning the white flintstones. It must be a stricken deer, said John. No! I am woodman enough to see that no deer hath passed this way this morning, and yet the blood is fresh. But, hark to the sound! They stood listening all three with side-long heads. Through the silence of the great forest there came a swishing whistling sound, mingled with the most dolorous groans, and the voice of a man raised in a high, quavering kind of song. The comrades hurried onwards eagerly, and topping the brow of a small rising, they saw, upon the other side, the source from which these strange noises arose. A tall man, much stooped in the shoulders, was walking slowly with bended head and clasped hands in the centre of the path. He was dressed from head to foot in a long white, thinning cloth, and a high white cap with a red cross printed upon it. His gown was turned back from his shoulders, and the flesh there was a sight to make a man wince, for it was all beaten to a pulp, and the blood was soaking into his gown and trickling down upon the ground. Behind him walked a smaller man, with his hair touched with grey, who was clad in the same white garb. He entoned a long, whining rhyme in the French tongue, and at the end of every line he raised a thick cord, all jagged with pellets of lead, and smoked his companion across the shoulders until the blood spurted again. Even as three wayfarers stared, however, there was a sudden change. For the smaller man, having finished his song, loosened his own gown and handed the scourge to the other, who took up the stave once more, and lashed his companion with all the strength of his bare and sinewy arm. So, alternately beating and beaten, they made their dolerous way through the beautiful woods, and under the amber arches of the fading beach-trees, where the calm strength and majesty of nature might serve to rebuke the foolish energies and misspent strivings of mankind. Such a spectacle was new to Hordle John, or to Allen Edrickson, but the archer treated it lightly, as a common matter enough. Ah, these are the beating friars, otherwise called the flagellants, quote he. I marvel that you should have come upon none of them before, for across the water they are as common as galley-baggers. I have heard that there are no English among them, but they are from France, Italy, and Bohemia. On avant me camarade, that we might have speech with them. As they came up to them, Allen could hear the doleful dirge which the beater was chanting, bringing down his heavy whip at the end of each line, while the groans of the sufferer formed a sort of dismal chorus. It was in old French, and ran somewhat in this way. Or avant, entre nous deux frères, patons nos charonnes bien four, en remembrant la grande misère, de Dieu est sa pitiése mort, qui fut prie en la jambe d'amère, et vendu est très à tort, et bastue sa chair, vierges et d'air, au nom de ce bâton plus fort. Then at the end of the verse, the scourge changed hands, and the chanting began anew. Truly, holy fathers! said the archer in French as they came up rest of them. You have beaten enough for today. The road is all spotted like a shambles at Martinmas. Why should you mishandle yourselves thus? C'est pour vos peches, pour vos peches, they droned, looking at the travellers with sad, lacklust eyes, and then bent to their bloody work once more, without heed to the prayers and persuasions which were addressed to them. Finding all remonstrance useless, the three comrades hastened on their way, leaving these strange travellers to their dreary task. Morte, Dieu! cried the bowman. There is a bucketful or more of my blood over in France, but it was all spilled in hot fight, and I should think twice before I drew it drop by drop as these friars are doing. By my hilt, our young one here is as white as a pickety cheese. What is a miss, then, Montchere? It is nothing, Allen answered. My life has been too quiet. I am not used to such sights. Muff! the other cried. I have never yet seen a man who is so stout of speech, and yet so weak of heart. Not so, friend! growth, Big John! It is not weakness of heart, for I know the lad well. His heart is as good as thine or mine, but he hath more in his fate than ever you will carry under that tin pot of thine, and as a consequence he can see further into things, so that they weigh upon him more. Surely to any man it is a sad sight, said Allen, to see these holy men who have done no sin themselves, suffering so for the sins of others. Saints are they, if in this age any may merit so higher name. I count them not to fly, cried Hordle John, for who is the better for all their whipping and yowling? They are like the other friars I show when all is done. Let them leave their backs alone, and beat the pride out of their hearts. By the three kings there is soothin' what you say, remarked the archer. Besides, me thinks that if I were Le Bon Dieu it would bring me little joy to see a poor devil cutting the flesh off his bones, and I should think that he had but a small opinion of me that he should hope to please me by such provost-martial work. No, by my hilt I should look with a more loving eye upon a jolly archer who never harmed a fallen foe, and never feared a hail-one. Doubtless you mean no sin, said Allen, if your words are wild it is not for me to judge them. Can you not see that there are other foes in this world besides Frenchmen, and as much glory to be gained in conquering them? Would it not be a proud day for night or squire if he could overthrow seven adversaries in the lists? Yet here are we in the lists of life, and there come the seven black champions against us, so pride, so covetousness, so lust, so anger, so gluttony, so envy, and so sloth. Let a man lay those seven low, and he shall have the prize of the day, from the hands of the fairest queen of beauty, even from the virgin mother herself. It is for this that these men mortify their flesh, and to set us an example who would pamper ourselves over much. I say again that they are God's own saints, and I bow my head to them. And so you shall, non-pity! replied the archer. I have not heard a man speak better since old Dom Bertrand died, who was at one time chaplain to the white company. He was a very valiant man, but at the battle of Brignier he was spitted through the body by a Hino-man at arms. For this we had an ex-communication read against the man, when next we saw our Holy Father at Avignon. But we had not his name, and knew nothing of him, save that he rode a Dapelgré Russin. I have feared sometimes that the blight may have settled upon the wrong man. Our company has been, and to bow knee before our Holy Father, the Pope Urban, the prop and centre of Crescendum," asked Alan, much interested. Perchance you have yourself set eyes upon his august face. Twice I saw him, said the archer. He was a lean little rat of a man with a scab upon his chin. The first time we had five thousand crowns out of him, though he made much ado about it. The second time we asked ten thousand, but it was three days before we could come to terms, and I am of the opinion myself that we might have done better by plundering the palace. His chamberlain and cardinals came forth, as I remember, to ask whether we would take seven thousand crowns with his blessing and a plenary absolution, or the ten thousand with his solemn ban by bell, book, and candle. We were all of one mind that it was best to have the ten thousand with the curse, but in some way they prevailed upon Sir John, so that we were blessed and shriven against our will. Perchance it is as well, for the company were in need of it about that time. The pious Alan was deeply shocked by this reminiscence. Involuntarily he glanced up and around to see if there were any trace of those opportune leaven flashes and thunderbolts which in the actor sanctorum were once so often to cut short the loose talk of the scoffer. The autumn sun streamed down as brightly as ever, and the peaceful red path still wound in front of them through the rustling, yellow-tinted forest. Nature seemed to be too busy with her own concerns to heed the dignity of an outraged pontiff. Yet he felt a sense of weight and reproach within his breast, as though he had sinned himself in giving ear to such words. The teachings of twenty years cried out against such license. It was not until he had thrown himself down before one of the many wayside crosses, and had prayed from his heart both for the archer and for himself that the dark cloud rolled back again from his spirit. The Three Friends His companions had passed on while he was at his horizons, but his young blood and the fresh morning air both invited him to a scamper. His staff in one hand and his script in the other. With springy step and floating locks he raced along the forest path, as active and as graceful as a young deer. He had not far to go, however. For on turning a corner he came on a roadside cottage, with a wooden fence-work around it, where stood Big John and Aylward the Bowman, staring at something within. As he came up with them he saw that two little lads, one about nine years of age and the other somewhat older, were standing on the plot in front of the cottage, each holding out a round stick in their left hands, with their arms stiff and straight from the shoulder, as silent and still as two small statues. They were pretty blue-eyed, yellow-haired lads, well-made and sturdy, with bronze skins which spoke of woodland life. Here are young chips from an old post, Dave, cried the soldier, in great delight. This is the proper way to raise children. By my hilt I could not have trained them better if I had the ordering of it myself. What is it then? asked Hordle John. They stand very stiff, and I trust they have not been struck so. Nay! They are training their left arms, they may have a steady grasp of the bow. So my own father trained me, and six days a week I held out his walking staff till my arm was as heavy as lead. Hol' I'm his awful, how long will you hold out? Until the sun is over the great lime-tree, good master, the elder answered. What would you be, then, woodman, verterers? Nay! Soldiers! they cried both together. By the beard of my father, but you are welts of the true breed. Why so keen, then, to be soldiers? That we may fight the Scots, they answered. Daddy will send us to fight the Scots. And why the Scots, my pretty lads? We have seen French and Spanish galleys no further away than Southampton, but I doubt it will be some time before the Scots find their way to these parts. Our business is with the Scots, quote the elder, for it was the Scots who cut off Daddy's string fingers and his thumbs. Eyelads, it was that, said a deep voice from behind Alan's shoulder. Looking round, the wayfarers saw a gaunt, big-boned man with sunken cheeks and a sallow face who had come up behind them. He held up his two hands as he spoke, and showed that the thumbs and two first fingers had been torn away from each of them. Muff, wah, Camerad! cried Elwood, who hath served thee in so shameful a fashion. It is easy to see, friend, that you were born far from the marches of Scotland, quote the stranger with a bitter smile. North of Humber there's no man who would not know the handiwork of Devil Douglas, the Black Lord James, and how fell you into his hands? asked John. I am a man of the North Country, from the town of Beverly and the Wappen take of Holderness, he answered. There was a day when, from Trent to Tweed, there was no better marksman than Robin Heathcote. Yet, as you see, he hath left me, as he hath left many another poor border archer, with no grip for bill or bow. Yet the King hath given me a living here in the Southlands, and please God, these two lads of mine will pay off a debt that has been owing over long. That's the price of Daddy's thumbs, boys! Twenty Scottish lives!" they answered together, and for the fingers, half a score. When they can bend my war-bow, and bring down a squirrel at a hundred paces, I send them to take service under Johnny Copeland, the Lord of the marches and Governor of Carlisle. By my soul I would give the rest of my fingers to see the Douglas within arrow flight of them. May you live to see it, quote the bowman. And hark ye, may's awful! Take an old soldier's reed, and lay your bodies to the bow, drawing from hip and thigh as much as from arm. Learn also, I pray you, to shoot with a dropping shaft, for though a bowman may at times be called upon to shoot straight and fast, yet he is more often that he has to do with a town guard behind a wall or an arbalester with his mantlet raised, when you cannot hope to do him scathe unless your shaft falls straight upon him from the clouds. I have not drawn string for two weeks, but I may be able to show you how such shots may be made. He loosed his longbow, slung his quiver round to the front, and then glanced keenly round for a fitting mark. There was a yellow and withered stump some way off, seen under the drooping branches of a lofty oak. The archer measured the distance with his eye, and then, drawing three shafts, he shot them off with such speed that the first had not reached the mark ere the last one was on the string. Each arrow passed high over the oak, and of the three two struck fair into the stump, while the third, caught in some wandering puff of wind, was driven a foot or two to one side. "'Good!' cried the North Countryman. "'Harken to him, lads! He is a master bowman. Your dad says amen to every word he says. By my hilt!' said Elwood. "'If I am to preach on bowmanship, the whole long day would scarce give me time for my sermon. We have marksmen in the company who will notch with a shaft every crevice and joint of a man at arm's harness, from the clasp of his bassinet to the hinge of his grieve. But with your favour, friend, I must gather my arrows again. For while a shaft costs a penny, a poor man can scarce leave them sticking in wayside stumps. We must then on a road again, and I hope from my heart that you may train these two young gossawks here, until they are ready for a cast, even at such a quarry as you speak of." Leaving the thumbless archer and his brood, the wayfarers struck through the scattered huts of Emory Down, and out onto the broad rolling heath, covered deep in ferns and in heather, where droves of the half-wild black forest pigs were rooting about amongst the hillocks. The woods about this point fall away to the left and the right, while the road curves upwards and the wind sweeps keenly over the swelling uplands. The broad strips of bracken glowed red and yellow against the black peaty soil, and a queenly doe, who grazed among them, turned her white front and her great questioning eyes towards the wayfarers. Again gazed in admiration at the supple beauty of the creature, but the archer's fingers played with his quiver, and his eyes glistened with the fell instinct which urges a man to slaughter. "'Tet, dear!' he growled, were this front so even guillain, we should have a fresh haunch for our known meat. Law or no law, I have a mind to loose a bolt at her. I would break your stave across my knee first," cried John, laying his great hand upon the bow. "'What man! I am forest-born, and I know what comes of it. In our township of Hordle two have lost their eyes, and one his skin for this very thing. On my truth I felt no great love when I first saw you. But since then I have conceived over much regard for you, to wish to see the verderer's flair at work upon you. That's my trade to risk my skin,' growled the archer. But nonetheless he thrust his quiver over his hip again, and turned his face for the west. As they advanced the path still tended upwards, running from Heath into cops as of Holly and you, and so back into Heath again. It was joyful to hear the merry whistle of blackbirds as they darted from one clump of greenery to the other. Now and again a peachy amber-coloured stream rippled across their way, with ferny overgrown banks, where the blue kingfisher flitted busily from side to side, or the grey and pensive heron, swollen with trout and dignity, stood ankle-deep among the sedges. Chattering jays and loud wood-pigeons flapped thickly overhead, while ever and on the measured tapping of nature's carpenter, the great green woodpecker, sounded from each wayside grove. On either side, as the path mounted, the long sweep of country broadened and expanded, sloping down on the one side through yellow forest and brown moor, to the distant smoke of Lamington, and the blue misty channel which lay alongside the skyline. While to the north, the woods rolled away, grove, topping grove, to where in the farthest distance the white spire of Salisbury stood out hard and clear against the cloudless sky. To Allen, whose days had been spent in the low-lying coastland, the eager upland air, and the wide free countryside, gave a sense of life and of joy of living, which made his young blood tingle in his veins. Even the heavy John was not unmoved by the beauty of their road, while the bowman whistled lustily, or sang snatches of French love-songs in a voice which might have scared the most stout-hearted maiden that ever harkened to serenade. "'I have a liking for that North Countryman,' he remarked presently. He had the good power of hatred. Cursed sea by his cheek and eye, that he is as bitter as verges. I warm to a man who hath some gall in his liver. Ah, me!" sighed Allen. "'Would it not be better if he had some love in his heart?' "'I would not say nay to that. By my hilt I never shall be said to be a traitor to the little king. Let a man love the sex. Pasture, they are made to be loved, le petit, from wimple down to shoestring. I am right glad, mon garçon, to see that the good monks have trained thee so wisely and so well. Nay, I meant not worldly love, but rather that his heart should soften towards those who have wronged him.' The archer shook his head. "'A man should love those of his own breed,' said he. "'But it is not nature that an English-born man should love a scott or a Frenchman. Muff, wow, you have not seen a drove of nith-stale raiders on their Galloway necks, or you would not speak of loving them. I would as soon take Beelzebub himself to my arms. I fear, mon gar, that they have taught thee but badly at Beaulieu. For surely a bishop knows more of what is right, and what is ill, than an abbot can do, and I myself, with these very eyes, saw the Bishop of Lincoln, hew into a Scottish hobbler, with a battle-axe, which was a passing strange way of showing him that he loved him. Alan, scarce, saw his way to argue, in the face of so decided an opinion on the part of a high dignitary of the church. "'You have borne arms against the Scots, then,' he asked. "'Why, man, I first loosed string in battle when I was but a lad, younger by two years than you, at Neville's Cross, under the Lord Mowbury. Later I served under the Warden of Berwick, that very John Copeland of whom our friend spoke, the same who held the King of Scots to ransom. Muff, wow, it is rough soldiering, and a good school for one who had learned to be hardy and war-wise.' "'I have heard that the Scots are good men of war,' said Hordle John. "'For Axman and Spearman have not seen their match,' the archer answered. They can travel, too, with a bag of meal and a grid-iron slung to their sword-belt, so that it is ill to follow them. There are scant crops and few beavies in their borderland, where a man must reap his grain with a sickling one fist and a brown bill in the other. On the other hand, they are the sorriest archers that I have ever seen, and cannot so much as aim with the arbalest to say nought of the longbow. Again, they are mostly poor folk, even the nobles among them, so that there are few who can buy as good a brick-a-deen of chain-mail as that which I am wearing, and it is ill for them to stand up against our own knights, who carry the price of five scotch farms upon their chest and shoulders. Man for man, with equal weapons, they are as worthy and valiant men as could be found in the whole of Christendom. And the French, asked Ellen, to whom the archers, like Gossip, had all the relish that the words of the man of action have for the recluse. The French are also very worthy men. We have had great good fortune in France, and it hath led to much bobbins and campfire talk, but I have ever noticed that those who know the most have the least to say about it. I have seen Frenchmen fight both in the open field, in the intaking, and the defending of towns, or castle wicks, in escalados, camissades, night forays, bushments, sallies, outfalls, and nightly spear-runnings. Their knights and squires lad are every wit as good as ours, and I could pick out a score of those who ride behind Dugascola, who would hold the lists with sharpened lances against the best men in the army of England. On the other hand, their common folk are so crushed down with gabel and pultax, and every manner of cursed tallage, that the spirit has passed right out of them. It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war. Fleece them like sheep, and sheep they will remain. If the nobles had not conquered the poor folk, it is like enough that we should have not conquered the nobles. But they must be sorry folk to bow down to the rich in such a fashion, said Big John. I am but a poor commoner of England myself, and yet I know something of charters, liberties, franchises, usages, privileges, customs, and the like. If these be broken, then all men know that it is time to buy arrowheads. I, but the men of the law are strong in France, as well as the men of war. By my hilt I hold that a man has more to fear there from the ink-pot of one of them than from the iron of the other. There is ever some cursed sheepskin in their strongboxes to prove that the rich man should be richer and the poor man poorer. It would scarce pass in England, but they are quiet folk over the water. And what other nations have you seen in your travels, good sir? asked Alan Edrickson. His young mind hungered for plain facts of life, after the long course of speculation and of mysticism on which he had been trained. I have seen the low countrymen in arms, and I have naught to say against him. Heavy and slow is he by nature, and is not to be brought into battle for the sake of a lady's eyelash or the twang of a minstrel string, like the hotter blood of the south. But ma foie, lay hand on his wool bales, or trifle with his velvet of bruge, and outbuzz his every stout burger like bees from the teahole, ready to lay on as though it were his one business in life. By our lady they have shown the French in Cortaille and elsewhere that they are as deft in wielding steel as in welding it. And the men of Spain? They, too, were very hardy soldiers. The more so for many hundred years they have had to fight hard against the cursed followers of the Black Mahood, who have pressed upon them from the south, and still, as I understand, hold a fairer half of the country. I had a turn with them upon the sea when they came over to Winchelsea, and the good queen had her ladies sat upon the cliffs looking down at us, as if it had been a joust or tourney. By my help it was a sight that was worth the seeing, for all that was best in England was out on the water that day. We went forth in little ships and came back in great galleys, for of fifty tall ships of Spain, over two score flew the cross of St George ere the sun had set. But now, youngster, I have answered you freely, and I show it is time that you answered me. Let things be plait and plain between us. I am a man who shoots straight at his mark. You saw the things I had with me yonder hostel, name which you will save only the box of rose-coloured sugar, which I take to the Lady Loring, and you shall have it, if you all but come with me to France. Nay, said Alan, I would gladly come with you to France, or where else you will, just to list your talk, and because you are the only two friends that I have in the whole wide world outside of the Cloisters. But, indeed, it may not be, for my duty is towards my brother, seeing that father and mother are dead, and he my elder. Besides, when you talk of taking me to France, you do not conceive how useless I should be to you, seeing that neither by training nor by nature am I fitted for the wars, and there seems to be naught but strife in those parts. Ah, that comes from my fool's talk, cried the archer, for being a man of no learning myself, my tongue turns to blades and targets, even as my hand does. Know, then, that for every parchment in England there are twenty in France. For every statue, cut gem, shrine, carven screen, or what else might please the I have a learned clerk, there are a good hundred to our one. At the spoiling of Carcassonne I have seen chambers stored with writing, though not one man in our company could read them. Again, in Arles and Nîmes, another town that I could name, there are the great arches and fortallis still standing, which were built of old by giant men who came from the south. Can I not see by your brightened eye how you would love to look upon these things? Come, then, with me, and by these ten finger-bones there is not one of them which you shall not see. I should indeed love to look upon them, Ellen answered, but I have come from Beaulieu for a purpose, and I must be true to my service, even as thou are true to thine. Be think you again, mon ami, quoth Elwood, that you might do much good yonder, since there are three hundred men in the company, and none who was ever a word of grace for them, and yet the virgin knows there was never a set of men who were in more need of it. Sickly the one duty may balance the other. Your brother hath done without you this many a year, and as I gather he hath never walked as far as Beaulieu to see you during all that time, so he cannot be in any great need of you. Besides, said John, the Sockman of Minstead is a byword through the forest, from Bramshaw Hill to Honsley Walk. He is a drunken, brawling, perilous churl, as you may find at your cost. The more reason that I should strive to mend him, quoth Ellen, there is no need to urge me, friends, for my own wishes would draw me to France, and it would be a joy to me if I could go with you. But indeed and indeed it cannot be, so here I take my leave of you. For yonder square tower amongst the trees upon the right must surely be the Church of Minstead, and I may reach it by this path through the woods. Well, God be with thee, lad, cried the Archer, pressing Ellen to his heart. I am quick to love and quick to hate, and for God I am loathed apart. Would it not be well, said John, that we should wait here and see what manner of greeting you have from your brother? You may prove to be as welcome as the king's purveyor to the village dame. Nay, nay, he answered, he must not bide for me, for where I go I stay. Yet it may be as well that you should know where we go, said the Archer. We shall now journey south through the woods, until we come out upon the Christchurch Road, and so onwards, hoping tonight to reach the castle of Sir William Montecute, Earl of Salisbury, of which Sir Nigel Loring is constable. There we shall bide, and it is like enough that for a month or more you may find us there ere we are ready for our viage back to France. It was hard indeed for Ellen to break away from these two new but hearty friends, and so strong was the combat between his conscience and his inclinations, that he dared not look round lest his resolution should slip away from him. It was not until he was deep among the tree trunks that he cast a glance backwards, when he found that he could still see them through the branches on the road above him. The Archer was standing with folded arms, his bow jutting from over his shoulder, and the sun gleaming brightly upon his headpiece and the links of his chain-mail. Beside him stood his giant recruit, still clad in the homespun and ill-fitting garments of the Fuller of Limington, with arms and legs shooting out of his scanty garb. Even as Ellen watched them, they turned upon their heels, and plodded off together upon their way. END OF CHAPTER VIII. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Clive Catterall. The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. CHAPTER IX. How Strange Things Befell in Minstead Wood The path which the young clerk had now to follow lay through a magnificent forest of the very heaviest timber, where the giant bowls of oak and of beech formed long aisles in every direction, shooting up their huge branches to build the majestic arches of nature's own cathedral. Beneath, lay a broad carpet of the softest and greenest moss, flecked over with fallen leaves, but yielding pleasantly to the foot of the traveller. The track which guided him was one so seldom used, that in places it lost itself entirely among the grass, to reappear as a reddish rut between the distant tree trunks. It was very still here, in the heart of the woodlands. The gentle rustle of the branches, and the distant cooing of pigeons, were the only sounds which broke in upon the silence, save that once Alan heard far off a merry call upon a hunting bugle, and the shrill yapping of the hounds. It was not without some emotion that he looked upon the scene around him, for in spite of his secluded life, he knew enough of the ancient greatness of his own family, to be aware that the time had been when they had held undisputed and paramount sway of all that tract of country. His father could trace his pure Saxon lineage back to that god-free mouth, who had held the manners of Bister and of Minstead at the time when the Norman first set mailed foot upon English soil. The afforestation of the district, however, and its conversion into a royal domain, had clipped off a large section of his estate, while other parts had been confiscated as a punishment for his supposed complicity in an abortive Saxon rising. The fate of the ancestor had been typical of that of his descendants. During three hundred years their domains had gradually contracted, sometimes through royal or feudal encroachment, and sometimes through such gifts to the church, as that with which Alan's father had opened the doors of Beaulieu Abbey to his younger son. The importance of the family had thus dwindled, but they still retained the old Saxon manor house, with a couple of farms and a grove large enough to afford panaged to a hundred pigs. Silver descentum porcus, as the old family parchment described it. Above all, the owner of the soil could still hold his head high as the veritable sockman of Minstead, that is, as holding the land in free sockage, with no feudal superior and answerable to no man lower than the king. Knowing this, Alan felt some little glow of worldly pride, as he looked for the first time upon the land with which so many generations of his ancestors had been associated. He pushed on the quicker, twirling his staff merrily, and looking out at every turn of the path for some sign of the old Saxon residence. He was suddenly arrested, however, by the appearance of a wild-looking fellow armed with a club, armed with a club, who sprang out from behind a tree and barred his passage. He was a rough, powerful peasant, with a cap and tunic of untanned sheepskin, leather breeches, and galley gaskins round legs and feet. Stand, he shouted, raising his heavy cudgel to enforce the order. Who are you to walk so freely through the wood? Where the would you go, and what is your errand? Why should I answer your questions, my friend? said Alan, standing on his guard. Because your tongue may save your fate. But where have I looked upon your face before? No longer ago than last night at the Pied Merlin, the clerk answered, recognizing the escaped surf, who had been so outspoken as to his wrongs. By the virgin, yes! He was a little clerk, who sat so numb in the corner, and then cried fire on the gleamon. What hast in the script? Nought of any price. How can I tell that clerk? Let me see it. Not I. Fool! I could pull you limb from limb like a pullet. What would you have? Hast forgot that we are alone, far from all men. How can your clerkship help you? Would lose a script and life, too? I will part with neither, without fight. A fight, quother! A fight betwixt spurred cock and new hatched chicken. Thy fighting days may soon be over. Hadst asked me in the name of charity, I would have given freely, cried Helen. As it stands, not one farthing shall you have with my free will, and when I see my brother, the Sockman of Minstead, he will raise hue and cry from vill to vill, from hundred to hundred, until you are taken as a common robber and scourged to the country. The outlaw sank his club. The Sockman's brother, he gasped. Now, by the keys of Peter, I had rather that hand withered, and tongue was palsied ere I had struck or miscalled you. If you are the Sockman's brother, you are one of the right side I warrant, for all your clarkly dress. He is brother, I am, said Helen. But if I were not, is that reason why you should molest me on the king's ground? I give not the pit of an apple for king or for noble, cried the serf passionately. Ill have I had from them, and ill I shall repay them. I am a good friend to my friends, and by that virgin an evil foe-man to my foes. And therefore the worst of foe-man to thyself, said Helen, but I pray you, since you seem to know him, to point out to me the shortest path to my brother's house. The serf was about to reply, when the clear ringing call of a bugle burst from the wood close behind them, and Allen caught sight for an instant of the done side, and white breast of a lordly stag glancing swiftly betwixt the distant tree-trunks. A minute later came the shaggy deer-hounds, a dozen or fourteen of them, running on a hot scent, with nose to earth and tail in air. As he streamed past, the silent forest around broke suddenly into loud life, with galloping of hooves, crackling of brushwood, and the short, sharp cries of the hunters. Close behind the pack rode a furrier and a yeoman-brekker whooping on the laggards and encouraging the leaders in the shrill half-French jargon, which was the language of venery and wood-craft. Allen was still gazing after them, listening to the loud, Haike Bayard, Haike Pommers, Haike Librit, with which they called upon their favourite hounds, when a group of horsemen crashed out through the underwood, at the very spot where the surf and he were standing. The one who led was a man between fifty and sixty years of age, war-worn and weather-beaten, with a broad, thoughtful forehead, and eyes which shone brightly from under his fierce and overhung brows. His beard, streaked thickly with grey, bristled forward from his chin, and spoke of a passionate nature, while the long, finely cut face and firm mouth marked the leader of men. His figure was erect and soldierly, and he rode his horse with the careless grace of a man whose life had been spent in the saddle. In common garb, his masterful face and flushing eye would have marked him as one who was born to rule, but now with his silken tunic powdered with gold fleur-de-lis, his velvet mantle lined with the royal minifer. The lions of England stamped in silver upon his harness, none could fail to recognise the noble Edward, most war-like and powerful of all the long line of fighting monarchs who had ruled the Anglo-Norman race. Allen doffed hat and bowed head at the sight of him, but the surf folded his hands and leaned them upon his cudgel, looking with little love at the knot of nobles and knights in waiting who rode behind the king. Ha! cried Edward, reigning up for an instant his powerful black sedead. Le serf est pass, non? Il s'y bock us. Tu parles anglais. The dear clowns, said a hard visaged swarthy-faced man, who rode at the king's elbow. If you have headed it back, it is as much as your ears are worth. It passed by the blighted beach there, said Allen, pointing, and the hounds were hard at its heels. It is well, cried Edward, still speaking in French, for though he could understand English, he had never learned to express himself in so barbarous and unpolished a tongue. By my faith, sirs, he continued, half turning in his saddle to address his escort, and lest my wood-craft is sadly at fault, it is a stag of six tines and the finest that we have roused this journey. A golden St. Hubert to the man who is the first to sound the moat. He shook his bridle, as he spoke, and thundered away, his knights lying low upon their horses, and galloping as hard as whip and spur would drive them in the hope of winning the king's prize. Away they drove, down the long green glade, bay horses, black and grey, riders clad in every shade of velvet, fur or silk, with glint of brazen horn and flash of knife and spear. One only lingered, the black-browed Baron Brocas, who, making a gombad which brought him within arm-sweep of the surf, slashed him across the face with his riding-whip. Doff, dog, doff! he hissed. When a monarch deigns to lower his eyes to such as you, then spurred through the undwood and was gone, with a gleam of steel shoes and a flatter of dead leaves. The villain took the blow without wince or cry, as one to whom stripes are a birthright and an inheritance. His eyes flashed, however, and he shook his bony hand with a fierce wild gesture after the retreating figure. Black hound of Gascony, he muttered, evil the day that you and those like you set foot in free England. I know thy kennel of Roshkor. The night will come when I may do to thee and thine what you and your class have wrought upon mine and me. May God smite me if I fail to smite thee, thou French robber, with thy wife and thy child and all that is under thy castle-roof. Forbear, cried Ellen! Mix not God's name with these unhellowed threats! And yet it was a coward's blow, and one to stir the blood and loose the tongue of the most peaceful. Let me find some soothing symbols and lay them on the wheel to draw the sting. Nay! There is but one thing that can draw the sting, and that the future may bring to me. But, Clarke, if you would see your brother, you must on, for there is a meeting to-day, and his merry men will await him ere the shadows turn from west to east. I pray you not hold him back, for it will be an evil thing if all the stout lads were there, and the leader are missing. I would come with you, but soothe to say I am stationed here, and may not move. The path over Yonder, betwixt the oak and the thorn, should bring you out into his nether-field. Alan lost no time in following the directions of the wild, masterless man whom he left among the trees where he had found him. His heart was the heavier for the encounter, not only because all bitterness and wrath were abhorrent to his gentle nature, but also because it disturbed him to hear his brother spoken of as though he were a chief of outlaws, or the leader of a party against the state. Indeed, of all the things which he had yet seen in the world to surprise him, there was none more strange than the hate which class appeared to bear to class. The talk of labourer, woodman, and villain in the inn had all pointed to the widespread mutiny, and now his brother's name was spoken of as though he were the very centre of the universal discontent. In good truth the commons throughout the length and breadth of the land were heart weary of this fine game of chivalry which had been played so long at their expense. So long as night and barren were a strength and a guard to the kingdom, they might be endured, but now, when all man knew that the great battles in France had been won by English yeoman and Welsh stabbers, war-like fame, the only fame to which his class has ever aspired, appeared to have deserted the plate-clad horseman. The sports of the lists had done much in days gone by to impress the minds of the people. But the plumed and unwieldy champion was no longer an object either of fear or of reverence to men whose fathers and brothers had shot into the press at Cressy or Poitiers, and seen the proudest chivalry in the world unable to make head against the weapons of disciplined peasants. Power had changed hands. The protector had become the protected, and the whole fabric of the feudal system was tottering to a fall. Hence the fierce mutterings of the lower classes and the constant discontent breaking out into local tumult and outrage and culminating some years later in the great rising of Tyler. What Alan saw and wondered at in Hampshire would have appealed equally to the traveller in any other English county from the Channel to the marches of Scotland. He was following the track, his misgivings increasing with every step which took him nearer to that home which he had never seen, when, of a sudden, the trees began to thin and the swords to spread out, according to a broad green lawn, where five crows lay in the sunshine and droves of black swine wandered unchecked. A brown forest stream swirls down the centre of this clearing, with a rude bridge flung across it, and on the other side was a second field sloping up to a long, low-lying wooden house with thatched roof and open squares for windows. Alan gazed across at it with flush cheeks and sparkling eyes for this, he knew, must be the home of his father's. A wreath of blue smoke floated up through a hole in the thatch, and was the only sign of life in the place, save a great black hound which lay sleeping unchained to the door-post. In the yellow shimmer of the autumn sunshine it lay as peacefully and as still as he had off-pictured it to himself in his dreams. He was roused, however, from his pleasant reverie by the sound of voices, and two people emerged from the forest some little way to his right, and moved across the field in the direction of the bridge. The one was a man with a yellow flowing beard and very long hair of the same tint drooping over his shoulders. His dress of good Norwich cloth and his assured bearing marked him as a man of position, while the sombre hue of his clothes and the absence of all ornament contrasted with the flash and glitter which had marked the king's retinue. By his side walked a woman, tall and slight and dark, with lithe graceful figure and clear-cut composed features. Her jet-black hair was gathered back under her light pink coiff. Her head poised proudly upon her neck, and her step long and springy, like that of some wild, tireless, woodland creature. She held her left hand in front of her, covered with a red velvet glove, and on the wrist a little brown falcon, very fluffy and bedraggled, which she smoothed and fondled as she walked. She came out into the sunshine, Alan noticed that her light gown, slashed with pink, was all stained with earth and moss upon one side, from shoulder to hem. He stood in the shadow of an oak, staring at her with parted lips, for this woman seemed to him to be the most beautiful and graceful creature that mind could conceive of. Such had he imagined the angels, and such he had tried to paint them in the buly missiles, but here there was something human. Were it only in the battered hawk and discoloured dress which sent a tingle and a thrill through his nerves, such as no dream of radiant and stainless spirit had ever yet been able to conjure up. Good, quiet, uncomplaining mother nature, long slighted and miscalled, still bides her time, and draws to her bosom the most errant of her children. The two walked swiftly across the meadow to the narrow bridge, he in front and she a pace or two behind. There they paused, and stood for a few minutes, face to face, talking earnestly. Allen had read and heard of love and of lovers. Such were these, doubtless, this golden-bearded man, and the fair damsel with the cold, proud face. Why else should they wander together in the woods, or be so lost in talk by rustic streams? And yet, as he watched, uncertain whether to advance from the cover, or to choose some other path to the house, he soon came to doubt the truth of this first conjecture. The man stood tall and square, blocking the entrance to the bridge, as throwing out his hands as he spoke in a wild, eager fashion, while the deep tones of his stormy voice rose at times into accents of menace and anger. She stood fearlessly in front of him, still stroking her bird, but twice she threw a swift questioning glance over her shoulder, as one who is in search of aid. So moved was the young clerk by these mute appeals, that he came forth from the trees, and crossed the meadow, uncertain what to do, and yet loath to hold back from one who might lead his aid. So intent were they upon each other, that neither took notice of his approach, until, when he was close upon them, the man threw his arm roughly round the damsel's waist, and drew her towards him, she straining her lithe supple figure away, and striking fiercely at him, while the hooded hawk screamed with ruffled wings, and pecked blindly in its mistresses' defence. Bird and maid, however, had but little chance against their assailant, who, laughing loudly, caught her wrist in one hand, while he drew her towards him with the other. The best rose has ever the longest thorns, said he, quiet little one, or you may do yourself a hurt. You must pay Saxon toll on Saxon land, my proud moored, for all your heirs and graces. You bore, she hissed, you base underbred clod. Is this your care and your hospitality? I would rather wear the branded surf from my father's fields. Leave go, I say. Ah, good youth, heaven has sent you. Make him loose me. By the honour of your mother I pray you to stand by me, and to make this navel loose me. Stand by you, I will, and that blithely, said Alan. Surely, sir, you should take shame to hold the damsel against her will. The man turned a face upon him which was lion-like in its strength and in its wrath. With his tangle of golden hair, his fierce blue eyes, and his large well-marked features, he was the most comely man whom Alan had ever seen, and yet there was something so sinister and so fail in his expression that child or beast might well have shrunk from him. His brows were drawn, his cheek flushed, and there was a mad sparkle in his eyes, which spoke of a wild, untameable nature. Young fool, he cried, holding the woman still to his side, though every line of her shrinking features spoke her abhorrence. Do you keep your spoon in your own broth? I read you to go on your way, lest worse before you this little wench has come with me, and with me she shall bide. Liar! cried the woman, and stooping her head, she suddenly bit fiercely into the broad brown hand which held her. He whipped it back with an oath while she tore herself free and slipped behind Alan, cowering up against him like the trembling leveret who sees the falcon poising for the swoop above him. Stand off my land, the man said fiercely, heedless of the blood which trickled freely from his fingers. What if you to do here? By your dress you should be one of those cursed clerks who overrun the land like vile rats, poking and prying into other man's concerns, too cat-lift to fight, yet too lazy to work. By the rude, if I had my will upon ye, I should nail ye upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their hulls. Art neither man nor woman unshaveling. Get thee back to thy fellows, ere I lay hands upon you, for your foot is on my land, and I may slay you as a common drawlatch. Is this your land, then? gasped Alan. Would you dispute it, dog? Would you wish by trick or quibble to juggle me out of these last acres? No, base-born knave, that you have dared this day to stand in the path of one whose race have been the advisers of kings and the leaders of hosts, ere ever this vile crew of Norman robbers came into the land, or such half-blood hounds as you were let loose to preach that the thief should have his booty, and the honest man should sin if he strove to win back his own. You are the Sockman of Minstead. That am I, and the son of Edric the Sockman, of the pure blood of Godfrey the Thane, by the only daughter of the house of Uluric, whose forefathers held the White Horse Banner at the fatal fight where our shield was broken and our swords shivered. I tell you, Clarke, that my folk held this land from Bramshaw Wood to the Ringwood Road, and by the soul of my father it will be a strange thing if I am to be bearded upon the little that is left of it. Be gone, I say, and meddle not with my affair. If you leave me now, whispered the woman, then shame for ever upon your manhood. Surely, sir, said Allen, speaking in as persuasive and soothing a way as he could, if your birth is gentle, there is the more reason that your manner should be gentle, too. I am well persuaded that you did but jest with this lady, and that you will now permit her to leave your land, either alone, or with me as a guide, if she should need one, through the wood. As to birth it does not become me to boast, and there is sooth in what you say as to the unworthiness of Clarke's, but it is none the less true that I am as well born as you. Dog! cried the furious Sockman, there is no man in the south who can say as much. Yet can I, said Allen, smiling, for indeed I also am the son of Edric the Sockman, of the pure blood of Godfrey the Thane, by the only daughter of Aluric of Brockenhurst. Surely, dear brother, he continued, holding out his hand, you have a warmer greeting than this for me. There are but two boughs left upon this old, old Saxon trunk. His elder brother dashed his hand aside with an oath, while an expression of malignant hatred passed over his passion-drawn features. You are the young cub of Beaulie, then, said he. I might have known it by the sleek face and the slavish manner, too monk-ridden and craven in spirit to answer back a rough word. Thy father, shavelling, with all his faults had a man's heart, and there were few who could look him in the eyes on the day of his anger. But you, look there, rat on yonder field where the cows graze, and on that other beyond, and on the orchard hard by the church. Do you know that all these were squeezed out of your dying father by greedy priests, to pay for your upbringing in the cloisters? I, the sockman, am sure of my lands that you may snivel Latin and eat bread for which you never did a hand's turn. You rob me first, and now you would come preaching and whining in search, may hap, of another field or two, for your priestly friends. Naive! My dogs shall be set upon you, but, meanwhile, stand out of the path, and stop me at your peril. As he spoke, he rushed forward, and, throwing the lad to one side, caught the woman's wrist. Alan, however, as active as a young deer-hound, sprang to her aid, and seized her by the other arm, raising his iron-shod staff as he did so. You may say what you will to me, he said, between his clenched teeth. It may be no better than I deserve, but, brother or no, I swear by my hopes of salvation that I will break your arm if you do not leave hold of the maid. There was a ring in his voice, and a flash in his eyes, which promised that the blow would follow quick at the heels of the word. For a moment the blood of the long line of hot-headed thanes was too strong for the soft whisperings of the doctrine of meekness and mercy. He was conscious of a fierce, wild thrill through his nerves and a throb of mad gladness in his heart, as his real human self burst for an instant the bonds of custom and of teaching which had held it so long. The sockman sprang back, looking to left and to right for some stick or stone which might serve him for a weapon, but finding none, he turned and ran at the top of his speed for the house, blowing the while upon a shrill whistle. Come, gasped the woman, fly, friend, ere he come back. Nay, let him come, cried Alan. I shall not budge a foot for him or his dogs. Come, come, she cried, tugging at his arm. I know the man. He will kill you. Come for the virgin's sake, or for my sake, for I cannot go and leave you here. Come, then, said he, and they ran together to the cover of the woods. As they gained the edge of the brushwood, Alan, looking back, saw his brother come running out of the house again, with the sun gleaming upon his hair and his beard. He held something which flashed in his right hand, and he stooped at the threshold to unloose the black hound. This way the woman whispered in low eager voice, through the bushes to that forked ash. Do not heed me. I can run as fast as you, I drove. Now into the stream, right in, over ankles to throw the dog off, though I think it is but a common cure like its master. As she spoke, she sprang herself into the shallow stream, and ran swiftly up the centre of it, with the brown water bubbling over her feet, and a hand outstretched towards the clinging branches of bramble or sapling. Alan followed close at her heels, with his mind in a whirl at this black welcome, and sudden shifting of all his plans and hopes. Yet, grave as were his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at the twinkling feet of his guide, and saw her lithe figure bend this way and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a lightness and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up with her. At last, when he was almost out of breath, she suddenly threw herself down upon a mossy bank, between two hollybushes, and looked ruefully at her own dripping feet and bedraggled skirt. "'Holy Mary!' said she. What shall I do? Mother will keep me to my chamber for a month, and make me work at the tapestry of the nine bold nights.' She promised as much last week when I fell into Wilverly bog, and yet she knows I cannot abide needlework. Alan, still standing in the stream, glanced down at the graceful pink and white figure, the curve of raven-black hair, and the proud sensitive face, which looked up frankly and confidingly at his own. "'We had best on,' he said. He may yet ever take us. Not so. We are well off his land now. Nor can he tell in this great wood which way we have taken. But you! You had him at your mercy. Why did you not kill him?' "'Kill him? My brother! And why not?' With a quick gleam of her white teeth. He would have killed you. I know him, and I read it in his eyes. Had I had your staff, I would have tried. I, and done it, too!' She shook her clenched white hand as she spoke, and her lips tightened ominously. "'I am already sad in heart for what I have done,' said he, sitting down on the bank, and sinking his face into his hands. "'God, help me! All that is worst in me seemed to come up a-most. Another instant, and I had smitten him. The son of my own mother, the man whom I had longed to take to my heart. And, last, that I should be so weak. Weak!' she exclaimed, raising her black eyebrows. I do not think that even my father himself, who was a hard judge of manhood, would call you that. But it is, as you may think, sir, a very pleasant thing for me to hear, that you aggrieved at what you have done, and I can but read that we should go back together, and you should make your peace with the Sockman, by handing back your prisoner. It is a sad thing that so smaller thing as a woman should come between two who are of the one blood." Simple Allen opened his eyes at this little spurt of feminine bitterness. "'Nay, lady!' said he. That were worst of all. What man could be so catliff and thrall as to fail you at your need? I have turned my brother against me, and now, alas, I appear to have given new offence also with my clumsy tongue. But, indeed, lady, I am torn both ways, and can scarcely grasp in my mind what it is that has befallen.' "'Nor can I marvel at that,' said she, with a little tinkling laugh. You came in, as the night does, in the jongler's romances, between dragon and damsel, with small time for the asking of questions. Come!' she went on, springing to her feet, and smoothing down her rumpled frock. Let us walk through the shore together, and we may come upon Bertrand with the horses. If poor Troubadour has not cast a shoe, we shall not have had this trouble. Nay! I must have your arm, for, though I speak lightly, now that all is happily over, I must frighten as my brave Roland. See how his chest heaves, and his dear feathers all arrive. The little knight who would not have his lady mishandled. So she prattled on to her hawk, while Alan walked by her side, stealing a glance from time to time at this queenly and wayward woman. In silence they wandered together over the velvet turf, and on through the broad, minstered woods, where the old, lichen-draped beaches, through their circles of black shadow, upon the sunlit sword. "'You have no wish, then, to hear my story,' said she, at last. "'If it pleases you to tell it me,' he answered. "'Oh!' she cried, tossing her head. "'If it is of so little interest to you, we'd best let it bide. "'Nay!' he said eagerly. "'I would faint hear it. You have a right to know it, if you have lost a brother's favour through it. And yet—ah, well, you are, as I understand, a clerk, so I must think of you as one step further in orders, and make you my father-confessor. Know, then, that this man has been a suitor for my hand. Yes, as I think, for my own sweet sake, than because he hath ambition. And had it on his mind that he might prove his fortunes by dipping into my father's strongbox, though the virgin knows he would have found little enough therein. My father, however, is a proud man, a gallant knight, and tried soldier of the oldest blood, to whom this man's churlish birth, and low descent—oh, lackaday! I had forgot that he was of the same strain as yourself. Nay, trouble not for that, said Ellen. We are all from good mother Eve. Streams may spring from one source, and yet some be clear, and some be foul," quoth she quickly. But to be brief over the matter, my father would have none of his willing, nor in sooth would I. On that he swore a vow against us, and he is known to be a perilous man, with many outlaws and others at his back. My father forbade that I should hawk or hunt in any part of the wood to the north of the Christchurch Road. As it chanced, however, this morning, my little Rowland here was loosed at a strong-winged heron, and Page Bertrand and I rode on, with no thoughts but for the sport, until we found ourselves in Minstead Woods. Small harm then but that my horse Troubadour trod with a tender foot upon a sharp stick, rearing and throwing me to the ground. See my gown! The third I have befouled within the week. Why, worth me when Agatha the Tywoman sets eyes upon it? And what, then, lady? asked Ullin. Why, then, away round Troubadour, for be like I spurt him in falling, and Bertrand rode after him as hard as hooves could bear him. When I rose, there was the sockman himself by my side, with the news that I was on his land, but with so many courteous words besides, and such gallant bearing, that he prevailed upon me to come to his house for shelter, there to wait until the Page return. By the grace of the Virgin and the help of my Patrons and Magdalene, I stopped short ere I reached his door, though, as you saw, he strove to hail me up to it. And then, ah! she shivered, and chattered like one in an ague fit. What is it, Quet Allen, looking about an alarm? Oh, nothing, nothing! I was but thinking how I bit into his hand. Sooner would I bite living toad or poisoned snake. Oh, I shall loathe my lips forever! But you! How brave you were! And how quick! How meek for yourself, and how bold for a stranger! If I were a man, I should wish to do what you had done. It was a small thing, he answered, with a tingle of pleasure, at those sweet words of praise. But you! What would you do? There is a great oak near here, and I think that Bertron will bring the horses there, for it is an old hunting twist of ours. Then, hay for home, and no more hawking to-day, a twelve-mile gallop will dry feet and skirt. But your father! Not one word shall I tell him. You do not know him, but I can tell you he is not a man to disobey as I have disobeyed him. He would avenge me, it is true, but it is not to him that I shall look for vengeance. Some day, perchance, in joust or in tourney, a night may wish to wear my colours, and then I shall tell him that if he does indeed crave my favour there is wrong unredressed, and the wronger is the sockman of Minstead. So my night shall find a venture such as bold night's love, and my debt shall be paid, for my father, none the wiser, and one rogue the less in the world. Say, is it not a brave plan? Nay, lady! It is a thought which is unworthy of you. How can such as you speak of violence and avengence? Are none to be gentle and kind? None to be piteous and forgiving? Alas! It is a hard, cruel world, on a wood that I had never left my abbey cell. To hear such words from your lips is as though I heard an angel of grace preaching the devil's own creed. She started from him as a young cult who first feels the bit. Grammarcy for your read, young sir! she said, with a little curtsy, as I understand your words, you are grieving that you ever met me, and look upon me as a preaching devil. Why, my father is a bitter man when he is roast, but hath never called me such a name as that. It may be his right and duty, but certices is none of thine. So it would be best, since you think so lowly of me, that you should take this path to the left, while I keep on upon this one, for it is clear that I can be no fit companion for you. So saying, with downcast lids and a dignity which was somewhat marred by her bedruggled skirt, she swept off down the muddy track, leaving Alan standing, staring ruefully after her. He waited in vain for some backward glance or sign of relenting, but she walked on with a rigid neck, until her dress was only a white flutter among the leaves. Then, with sunken head and a heavy heart, he plotted wearily down the other path, wroth with himself for the rude and uncouth tongue which had given offence, where so little was intended. He had gone some way, lost in doubt and in self-reproach, his mind all tremulous, with a thousand newfound thoughts and fears and wonderments, when, of a sudden, there was a light rustle of the leaves behind him, and, glancing round, there was this graceful, swift-footed creature, dreading in his very shadow, with her proud head bowed, even as his was, the picture of humility and repentance. "'I shall not vex you, nor even speak,' she said. "'But I would feign keep with you, while we are in the wood.' "'Nay, you cannot vex me,' he answered, all warm again at the very sight of her. "'It was my rough words which vexed you. But I have been thrown among men all my life, and, indeed, with all the will, I scarce know how to temper my speech to a lady's ear. Then, unsay it,' cried she quickly, "'say that I was right to wish to have vengeance on the sock-man.' "'Nay, I cannot do that,' he answered gravely. "'Then who is un-gentle and unkind now?' she cried in triumph. "'How stern and how cold you are for one so young! "'Aren't surely know me at clark, but bishop or cardinal at the least. Shouldst have crosier for staff and mighter for cap. "'Well, well, for your sake, I will forgive the sock-man, and take vengeance on none but on my own willful self, who must needs run into dangerous path. So, will that please you, sir?' "'There spoke your true self,' said he, "'and you will find more pleasure in such forgiveness than in any vengeance.' We shook ahead, as if by no means assured of it, and then, with a sudden little cry, which had more of a surprise than of joy in it, here is Bertrand with the horses. Down the glade there came a little green-clad page, with laughing eyes and long curls floating behind him. He sat perched on a high-bay horse, and held on to the bridle of a spirited black poultry, the hides of both glistening from a long run. "'I have sought you everywhere, dear Lady Maud,' said he, in a piping voice, springing down from his horse, and holding the stirrup. "'Truppador galloped as far as Holm Hill ere I could catch him. I trust that you have had no hurt or scathe.' He shot a questioning glance at Alan, as he spoke. "'No, Bertrand,' said she, thanks to this courteous stranger. "'And now, sir,' she continued, springing into her saddle. "'It is not fit that I leave you without a word more. Clarke or no, you have acted this day as becomes a true night. Being Arthur, and all his table could not have done more. It may be that, as some small return, my father or his kin may have power to advance your interest. He is not rich, but he is honoured, and have great friends. Tell me what is your purpose, and see if he may not aid it. "'Alas, Lady! I have no purpose. I have but two friends in the world, and they have gone to Christchurch, where it is likely I shall join them.' And where in Christchurch? At the castle which is hailed by the brave knight, Sir Nigel Loring, constable to the Earl of Salisbury. To his surprise she burst out a laughing, and, spurring her poultry, dashed off down the glade, with her page riding behind her. Not one word did she say, but as she vanished amid the trees, she half turned in her saddle, and waved a last greeting. One time he stood, half hoping that she might again come back to him. But the thud of the hooves had died away, and there was no sound in all the woods, but the gentle rustle and dropping of the leaves. At last he turned away, and made his way back to the high road, another person from the light-hearted boy who had left it a short three hours before. End of chapter 9