HIS companions had passed on whilst he was at his orisons; buthis young blood and the fresh morning air both invited him to ascamper. His staff in one hand and his scrip in the other, withspringy 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 cottagewith a wooden fence-work around it, where stood big John andAylward the bowman, staring at something within. As he came upwith them, he saw that two little lads, the one about nine yearsof age and the other somewhat older, were standing on the plot infront of the cottage, each holding out a round stick in theirleft 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 bronzedskins, which spoke of a woodland life.

"Here are young chips from an old bow stave!" cried the soldierin great delight. "This is the proper way to raise children. Bymy hilt! I could not have trained them better had I the orderingof it myself,"

"What is it then?" asked Hordle John. "They stand very stiff,and I trust that they have not been struck so."

"Nay, they are training their left arms, that they may have asteady grasp of the bow. So my own father trained me. and sixdays a week I held out his walking-staff till my arm was heavy aslead. Hola, mes enfants! how long will you hold out?"

"Until the sun is over the great lime-tree, good master," theelder answered.

What would ye be, then? Woodmen? Verderers?"

Nay, soldiers," they cried both together.

"By the beard of my father! but ye are whelps of the true breed.Why so keen, then, to be soldiers?"

"That we may fight the Scots," they answered. "Daddy will sendus to fight the Scots."

"And why the Scots, my pretty lads? We have seen French andSpanish galleys no further away than Southampton, but I doubtthat it will be some time before the Scots find their way tothese parts."

"Our business is with the Scots," quoth the elder; "for it wasthe Scots who cut off daddy's string fingers and his thumbs."

"Aye, lads, it was that," said a deep voice from behind Alleyne'sshoulder. Looking round, the wayfarers saw a gaunt, big-bonedman, with sunken cheeks and a sallow face, who had come up behindthem. He held up his two hands as he spoke, and showed that thethumbs and two first fingers had been torn away from each ofthem.

"Ma foi, camarade!" cried Aylward. "Who hath served thee in soshameful a fashion?"

"It is easy to see, friend, that you were born far from themarches of Scotland," quoth the stranger, with a bitter smile."North of Humber there is no man who would not know the handiworkof 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 Beverley andthe wapentake of Holderness," he answered. "There was a daywhen, from Trent to Tweed, there was no better marksman thanRobin Heathcot. Yet, as you see, he hath left me, as he hathleft many another poor border archer, with no grip for bill orbow. 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 thathath been owing over long. What is 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 ahundred paces, I send them to take service under Johnny Copeland,the Lord of the Marches and Governor of Carlisle. By my soul! Iwould give the rest of my fingers to see the Douglas withinarrow-flight of them."

"May you live to see it," quoth the bowman. "And hark ye, mesenfants, take an old soldier's rede and lay your bodies to thebow, drawing from hip and thigh as much as from arm. Learn also,I pray you, to shoot with a dropping shaft; for though a bowmanmay at times be called upon to shoot straight and fast, yet it ismore often that he has to do with a town-guard behind a wall, oran arbalestier with his mantlet raised when you cannot hope to dohim scathe unless your shaft fall straight upon him from theclouds. I have not drawn string for two weeks, but I may be ableto show ye how such shots should be made." He loosened hislong-bow, slung his quiver round to the front, and then glancedkeenly round for a fitting mark. There was a yellow and witheredstump some way off, seen under the drooping branches of a loftyoak. The archer measured the distance with his eye; and then,drawing three shafts, he shot them off with such speed that thefirst had not reached the mark ere the last was on the string.Each arrow passed high over the oak; and, of the three, two stuckfair into the stump; while the third, caught in some wanderingpuff of wind, was driven a foot or two to one side.

"Good!" cried the north countryman. "Hearken to him lads! He isa master bowman, Your dad says amen to every word he says."

"By my hilt!" said Aylward, "if I am to preach on bowmanship, thewhole long day would scarce give me time for my sermon. We havemarksmen in the Company who will knotch with a shaft everycrevice and joint of a man-at-arm's harness, from the clasp ofhis bassinet to the hinge of his greave. But, with your favor,friend, I must gather my arrows again, for while a shaft costs apenny a poor man can scarce leave them sticking in waysidestumps. We must, then, on our road again, and I hope from myheart that you may train these two young goshawks here until theyare ready for a cast even at such a quarry as you speak of."

Leaving the thumbless archer and his brood, the wayfarers struckthrough the scattered huts of Emery Down, and out on to the broadrolling heath covered deep in ferns and in heather, where drovesof the half-wild black forest pigs were rooting about amongst thehillocks. The woods about this point fall away to the left andthe right, while the road curves upwards and the wind sweepskeenly over the swelling uplands. The broad strips of brackenglowed red and yellow against the black peaty soil, and a queenlydoe who grazed among them turned her white front and her greatquestioning eyes towards the wayfarers.

Alleyne gazed in admiration at the supple beauty of the creature;but the archer's fingers played with his quiver, and his eyesglistened with the fell instinct which urges a man to slaughter.

"Tete Dieu!" he growled, "were this France, or even Guienne, weshould have a fresh haunch for our none-meat. Law or no law, Ihave 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 own township of Hordletwo have lost their eyes and one his skin for this very thing.On my troth, I felt no great love when I first saw you, but sincethen I have conceived over much regard for you to wish to see theverderer's flayer at work upon you."

"It is my trade to risk my skin," growled the archer; but nonethe less he thrust his quiver over his hip again and turned hisface for the west.

As they advanced, the path still tended upwards, running fromheath into copses of holly and yew, and so back into heath again.It was joyful to hear the merry whistle of blackbirds as theydarted from one clump of greenery to the other. Now and again apeaty amber colored stream rippled across their way, with fernyover-grown banks, where the blue kingfisher flitted busily fromside to side, or the gray and pensive heron, swollen with troutand dignity, stood ankle-deep among the sedges. Chattering jaysand loud wood-pigeons flapped thickly overhead, while ever andanon the measured tapping of Nature's carpenter, the great greenwoodpecker, sounded from each wayside grove. On either side, asthe path mounted, the long sweep of country broadened andexpanded, sloping down on the one side through yellow forest andbrown moor to the distant smoke of Lymington and the blue mistychannel which lay alongside the sky-line, while to the north thewoods rolled away, grove topping grove, to where in the furthestdistance the white spire of Salisbury stood out hard and clearagainst the cloudless sky. To Alleyne whose days had been spentin the low-lying coastland, the eager upland air and the widefree country-side gave a sense of life and of the joy of livingwhich made his young blood tingle in his veins. Even the heavyJohn was not unmoved by the beauty of their road, while thebowman whistled lustily or sang snatches of French love songs ina voice which might have scared the most stout-hearted maidenthat ever hearkened to serenade.

"I have a liking for that north countryman," he remarkedpresently. "He hath good power of hatred. Couldst see by hischeek and eye that he is as bitter as verjuice. I warm to a manwho hath some gall in his liver."

"Ah me!" sighed Alleyne. "Would it not be better if he had somelove in his heart?"

"I would not say nay to that. By my hilt! I shall never be saidto be traitor to the little king. Let a man love the sex.Pasques Dieu! they are made to be loved, les petites, fromwhimple down to shoe-string! I am right glad, mon garcon, to seethat the good monks have trained thee so wisely and so well."

"Nay, I meant not worldly love, but rather that his heart shouldsoften towards those who have wronged him."

The archer shook his head. "A man should love those of his ownbreed," said he. "But it is not nature that an English-born manshould love a Scot or a Frenchman. Ma foi! you have not seen adrove of Nithsdale raiders on their Galloway nags, or you wouldnot speak of loving them. I would as soon take Beelzebub himselfto my arms. I fear, mon gar., that they have taught thee butbadly at Beaulieu, for surely a bishop knows more of what isright and what is ill than an abbot can do, and I myself withthese very eyes saw the Bishop of Lincoln hew into a Scottishhobeler with a battle-axe, which was a passing strange way ofshowing him that he loved him."

Alleyne scarce saw his way to argue in the face of so decided anopinion on the part of a high dignitary of the Church. "You haveborne 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 LordMowbray. Later, I served under the Warden of Berwick, that veryJohn Copeland of whom our friend spake, the same who held theKing of Scots to ransom. Ma foi! it is rough soldiering, and agood school for one who would learn to be hardy and war-wise."

"I have heard that the Scots are good men of war," said HordleJohn.

"For axemen and for spearmen I have not seen their match," thearcher answered. "They can travel, too, with bag of meal andgridiron slung to their sword-belt, so that it is ill to followthem. There are scant crops and few beeves in the borderland,where a man must reap his grain with sickle in one fist and brownbill in the other. On the other hand, they are the sorriestarchers that I have ever seen, and cannot so much as aim with thearbalest, to say nought of the long-bow. Again, they are mostlypoor folk, even the nobles among them, so that there are few whocan buy as good a brigandine of chain-mail as that which I amwearing, and it is ill for them to stand up against our ownknights, who carry the price of five Scotch farms upon theirchest and shoulders. Man for man, with equal weapons, they areas worthy and valiant men as could be found in the whole ofChristendom."

"And the French?" asked Alleyne, to whom the archer's lightgossip had all the relish that the words of the man of actionhave for the recluse.

"The French are also very worthy men. We have had great goodfortune in France, and it hath led to much bobance and camp-firetalk, but I have ever noticed that those who know the most havethe least to say about it. I have seen Frenchmen fight both inopen field, in the intaking and the defending of towns orcastlewicks, in escalados, camisades, night forays, bushments,sallies, outfalls, and knightly spear-runnings. Their knightsand squires, lad, are every whit as good as ours, and I couldpick out a score of those who ride behind Du Guesclin who wouldhold the lists with sharpened lances against the best men in thearmy of England. On the other hand, their common folk are socrushed down with gabelle, and poll-tax, and every manner ofcursed tallage, that the spirit has passed right out of them. Itis a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and thinkthat he will be a lion in war. Fleece them like sheep and sheepthey will remain. If the nobles had not conquered the poor folkit is like enough that we should not have conquered the nobles."

"But they must be sorry folk to bow down to the rich in such afashion," said big John. "I am but a poor commoner of Englandmyself, and yet I know something of charters, libertiesfranchises, usages, privileges, customs, and the like. If thesebe broken, then all men know that it is time to buy arrow-heads."

"Aye, but the men of the law are strong in France as well as themen of war. By my hilt! I hold that a man has more to fear therefrom the ink-pot of the one than from the iron of the other.There is ever some cursed sheepskin in their strong boxes toprove that the rich man should be richer and the poor man poorer.It would scarce pass in England, but they are quiet folk over thewater."

"And what other nations have you seen in your travels, good sir?"asked Alleyne Edricson. His young mind hungered for plain factsof life, after the long course of speculation and of mysticism onwhich he had been trained.

"I have seen the low countryman in arms, and I have nought to sayagainst him. Heavy and slow is he by nature, and is not to bebrought into battle for the sake of a lady's eyelash or the twangof a minstrel's string, like the hotter blood of the south.

But ma foi! lay hand on his wool-bales, or trifle with his velvetof Bruges, and out buzzes every stout burgher, like bees from thetee-hole, ready to lay on as though it were his one business inlife. By our lady! they have shown the French at Courtrai andelsewhere that they are as deft in wielding steel as in weldingit."

"And the men of Spain?"

"They too are very hardy soldiers, the more so as for manyhundred years they have had to fight hard against the cursedfollowers of the black Mahound, who have pressed upon them fromthe south, and still, as I understand, hold the fairer half ofthe country. I had a turn with them upon the sea when they cameover to Winchelsea and the good queen with her ladies sat uponthe cliffs looking down at us, as if it had been joust ortourney. By my hilt! 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--forof fifty tall ships of Spain, over two score flew ,the Cross ofSt. George ere the sun had set. But now, youngster, I haveanswered you freely, and I trow it is time what you answered me.Let things be plat and plain between us. I am a man who shootsstraight at his mark. You saw the things I had with me at yonderhostel: name which you will, save only the box of rose-coloredsugar which I take to the Lady Loring, and you shall have it ifyou will but come with me to France."

"Nay," said Alleyne, "I would gladly come with ye to France orwhere else ye will, just to list to your talk, and because ye arethe only two friends that I have in the whole wide world outsideof the cloisters; but, indeed, it may not be, for my duty istowards my brother, seeing that father and mother are dead, andhe my elder. Besides, when ye talk of taking me to France, ye donot conceive how useless I should be to you, seeing that neitherby training nor by nature am I fitted for the wars, and thereseems to be nought but strife in those parts."

"That comes from my fool's talk," cried the archer; "for being aman of no learning myself, my tongue turns to blades and targets,even as my hand does. Know then that for every parchment inEngland there are twenty in France. For every statue, cut gem,shrine, carven screen, or what else might please the eye of alearned clerk, there are a good hundred to our one. At thespoiling of Carcasonne I have seen chambers stored with writing,though not one man in our Company could read them. Again, inArlis and Nimes, and other towns that I could name, there are thegreat arches and fortalices still standing which were built ofold by giant men who came from the south. Can I not see by yourbrightened eye how you would love to look upon these things?Come then with me, and, by these ten finger-bones! there is notone of them which you shall not see."

"I should indeed love to look upon them," Alleyne answered; "butI have come from Beaulieu for a purpose, and I must be true to myservice, even as thou art true to thine."

"Bethink you again, mon ami," quoth Aylward, "that you might domuch good yonder, since there are three hundred men in theCompany, and none who has ever a word of grace for them, and yetthe Virgin knows that there was never a set of men who were inmore need of it. Sickerly the one duty may balance the other.Your brother hath done without you this many a year, and, as Igather, he hath never walked as far as Beaulieu to see you duringall that time, so he cannot be in any great need of you."

"Besides," said John, "the Socman of Minstead is a by-wordthrough the forest, from Bramshaw Hill to Holmesley Walk. He isa drunken, brawling, perilous churl, as you may find to yourcost."

"The more reason that I should strive to mend him," quothAlleyne. "There is no need to urge me, friends, for my ownwishes would draw me to France, and it would be a joy to me if Icould go with you. But indeed and indeed it cannot be, so here Itake my leave of you, for yonder square tower amongst the treesupon the right must surely be the church of Minstead, and I mayreach it by this path through the woods."

"Well, God be with thee, lad!" cried the archer, pressing Alleyneto his heart. "I am quick to love, and quick to hate and 'foreGod I am loth to part."

"Would it not be well," said John, "that we should wait here, andsee what manner of greeting you have from your brother. You mayprove to be as welcome as the king's purveyor to the villagedame."

"Nay, nay," he answered; "ye must not bide for me, for where I goI stay."

"Yet it may be as well that you should know whither we go," saidthe archer. "We shall now journey south through the woods untilwe come out upon the Christchurch road, and so onwards, hopingto-night to reach the castle of Sir William Montacute, Earl ofSalisbury, of which Sir Nigel Loring is constable. There weshall bide, and it is like enough that for a month or more youmay find us there, ere we are ready for our viage back toFrance."

It was hard indeed for Alleyne to break away from these two newbut hearty friends, and so strong was the combat between hisconscience and his inclinations that he dared not look round,lest his resolution should slip away from him. It was not untilhe was deep among the tree trunks that he cast a glancebackwards, when he found that he could still see them through thebranches on the road above him. The archer was standing withfolded arms, his bow jutting from over his shoulder, and the sungleaming brightly upon his head-piece and the links of hischain-mail. Beside him stood his giant recruit, still clad inthe home-spun and ill-fitting garments of the fuller ofLymington, with arms and legs shooting out of his scanty garb.Even as Alleyne watched them they turned upon their heels andplodded off together upon their way.