The White Company
and plunges for very lust of life. Give her time, dame, give her time.”
“Well, I know that my father would have given me, not time, but a good
hazel-stick across my shoulders. Ma foi! I know not what the world is
coming to, when young maids may flout their elders. I wonder that you do
not correct her, my fair lord.”
“Nay, my heart's comfort, I never raised hand to woman yet, and it would
be a passing strange thing if I began on my own flesh and blood. It was
a woman's hand which cast this lime into mine eyes, and though I saw
her stoop, and might well have stopped her ere she threw, I deemed it
unworthy of my knighthood to hinder or balk one of her sex.”
“The hussy!” cried Lady Loring clenching her broad right hand. “I would
I had been at the side of her!”
“And so would I, since you would have been the nearer me my own. But
I doubt not that you are right, and that Maude's wings need clipping,
which I may leave in your hands when I am gone, for, in sooth, this
peaceful life is not for me, and were it not for your gracious kindness
and loving care I could not abide it a week. I hear that there is talk
of warlike muster at Bordeaux once more, and by St. Paul! it would be a
new thing if the lions of England and the red pile of Chandos were to
be seen in the field, and the roses of Loring were not waving by their
side.”
“Now woe worth me but I feared it!” cried she, with the color all struck
from her face. “I have noted your absent mind, your kindling eye, your
trying and riveting of old harness. Consider my sweet lord, that you
have already won much honor, that we have seen but little of each other,
that you bear upon your body the scar of over twenty wounds received
in I know not how many bloody encounters. Have you not done enough for
honor and the public cause?”
“My lady, when our liege lord, the king, at three score years, and my
Lord Chandos at three-score and ten, are blithe and ready to lay lance
in rest for England's cause, it would ill be-seem me to prate of service
done. It is sooth that I have received seven and twenty wounds. There is
the more reason that I should be thankful that I am still long of breath
and sound in limb. I have also seen some bickering and scuffling. Six
great land battles I count, with four upon sea, and seven and fifty
onfalls, skirmishes and bushments. I have held two and twenty towns,
and I have been at the intaking of thirty-one. Surely then it would
be bitter shame to me, and also to you, since my fame is yours, that I
should now hold back if a man's work is to be done. Besides, bethink
you how low is our purse, with bailiff and reeve ever croaking of empty
farms and wasting lands. Were it not for this constableship which the
Earl of Salisbury hath bestowed upon us we could scarce uphold the state
which is fitting to our degree. Therefore, my sweeting, there is the
more need that I should turn to where there is good pay to be earned and
brave ransoms to be won.”
“Ah, my dear lord,” quoth she, with sad, weary eyes. “I thought that at
last I had you to mine own self, even though your youth had been spent
afar from my side. Yet my voice, as I know well, should speed you on to
glory and renown, not hold you back when fame is to be won. Yet what can
I say, for all men know that your valor needs the curb and not the
spur. It goes to my heart that you should ride forth now a mere knight
bachelor, when there is no noble in the land who hath so good a claim to
the square pennon, save only that you have not the money to uphold it.”
“And whose fault that, my sweet bird?” said he.
“No fault, my fair lord, but a virtue: for how many rich ransoms have
you won, and yet have scattered the crowns among page and archer and
varlet, until in a week you had not as much as would buy food and
forage. It is a most knightly largesse, and yet withouten money how can
man rise?”
“Dirt and dross!” cried he.
“What matter rise or fall, so that duty be done and honor gained.
Banneret or bachelor, square pennon or forked, I would not give a denier
for the difference, and the less since Sir John Chandos, chosen flower
of English chivalry, is himself but a humble knight. But meanwhile fret
not thyself, my heart's dove, for it is like that there may be no war
waged, and we must await the news. But here are three strangers, and
one, as I take it, a soldier fresh from service. It is likely that he
may give us word of what is stirring over the water.”
Lady Loring, glancing up, saw in the fading light three companions
walking abreast down the road, all gray with dust, and stained with
travel, yet chattering merrily between themselves. He in the midst was
young and comely, with boyish open face and bright gray eyes, which
glanced from right to left as though he found the world around him both
new and pleasing. To his right walked a huge red-headed man, with
broad smile and merry twinkle, whose clothes seemed to be bursting and
splitting at every seam, as though he were some lusty chick who was
breaking bravely from his shell. On the other side, with his knotted
hand upon the young man's shoulder, came a stout and burly archer, brown
and fierce eyed, with sword at belt and long yellow yew-stave peeping
over his shoulder. Hard face, battered head piece, dinted brigandine,
with faded red lion of St. George ramping on a discolored ground, all
proclaimed as plainly as words that he was indeed from the land of war.
He looked keenly at Sir Nigel as he approached, and then, plunging his
hand under his breastplate, he stepped up to him with a rough, uncouth
bow to the lady.
“Your pardon, fair sir,” said he, “but I know you the moment I clap eyes
on you, though in sooth I have seen you oftener in steel than in velvet.
I have drawn string besides you at La Roche-d'Errien, Romorantin,
Maupertuis, Nogent, Auray, and other places.”
“Then, good archer, I am right glad to welcome you to Twynham Castle,
and in the steward's room you will find provant for yourself and
comrades. To me also your face is known, though mine eyes play such
tricks with me that I can scarce be sure of my own squire. Rest awhile,
and you shall come to the hall anon and tell us what is passing in
France, for I have heard that it is likely that our pennons may flutter
to the south of the great Spanish mountains ere another year be passed.”
“There was talk of it in Bordeaux,” answered the archer, “and I
saw myself that the armorers and smiths were as busy as rats in a
wheat-rick. But I bring you this letter from the valiant Gascon knight,
Sir Claude Latour. And to you, Lady,” he added after a pause, “I bring
from him this box of red sugar of Narbonne, with every courteous and
knightly greeting which a gallant cavalier may make to a fair and noble
dame.”
This little speech had cost the blunt bowman much pains and planning;
but he might have spared his breath, for the lady was quite as much
absorbed as her lord in the letter, which they held between them, a
hand on either corner, spelling it out very slowly, with drawn brows and
muttering lips. As they read it, Alleyne, who stood with Hordle John a
few paces back from their comrade, saw the lady catch her breath, while
the knight laughed softly to himself.
“You see, dear heart,” said he, “that they will not leave the old dog
in his kennel when the game is afoot. And what of this White Company,
archer?”
“Ah, sir, you speak of dogs,” cried Aylward; “but there are a pack
of lusty hounds who are ready for any quarry, if they have but a good
huntsman to halloo them on. Sir, we have been in the wars together, and
I have seen many a brave following but never such a set of woodland boys
as this. They do but want you at their head, and who will bar the way to
them!”
“Pardieu!” said Sir Nigel, “if they are all like their messenger, they
are indeed men of whom a leader may be proud. Your name, good archer?”
“Sam Aylward, sir, of the Hundred of Easebourne and the Rape of
Chichester.”
“And this giant behind you?”
“He is big John, of Hordle, a forest man, who hath now taken service in
the Company.”
“A proper figure of a man at-arms,” said the little knight. “Why, man,
you are no chicken, yet I warrant him the stronger man. See to that
great stone from the coping which hath fallen upon the bridge. Four of
my lazy varlets strove this day to carry it hence. I would that you two
could put them to shame by budging it, though I fear that I overtask
you, for it is of a grievous weight.”
He pointed as he spoke to a huge rough-hewn block which lay by the
roadside, deep sunken from its own weight in the reddish earth. The
archer approached it, rolling back the sleeves of his jerkin, but with
no very hopeful countenance, for indeed it was a mighty rock. John,
however, put him aside with his left hand, and, stooping over the stone,
he plucked it single-handed from its soft bed and swung it far into the
stream. There it fell with mighty splash, one jagged end peaking out
above the surface, while the waters bubbled and foamed with far-circling
eddy.
“Good lack!” cried Sir Nigel, and “Good lack!” cried his lady, while
John stood laughing and wiping the caked dirt from his fingers.
“I have felt his arms round my ribs,” said the bowman, “and they crackle
yet at the thought of it. This other comrade of mine is a right learned
clerk, for all that he is so young, hight Alleyne, the son of Edric,
brother to the Socman of Minstead.”
“Young man,” quoth Sir Nigel, sternly, “if you are of the same way of
thought as your brother, you may not pass under portcullis of mine.”
“Nay, fair sir,” cried Aylward hastily, “I will be pledge for it that
they have no thought in common; for this very day his brother hath set
his dogs upon him, and driven him from his lands.”
“And are you, too, of the White Company?” asked Sir Nigel. “Hast had
small experience of war, if I may judge by your looks and bearing.”
“I would fain to France with my friends here,” Alleyne answered; “but I
am a man of peace--a reader, exorcist, acolyte, and clerk.”
“That need not hinder,” quoth Sir Nigel.
“No, fair sir,” cried the bowman joyously. “Why, I myself have served
two terms with Arnold de Cervolles, he whom they called the archpriest.
By my hilt! I have seen him ere now, with monk's gown trussed to his
knees, over his sandals in blood in the fore-front of the battle. Yet,
ere the last string had twanged, he would be down on his four bones
among the stricken, and have them all houseled and shriven, as quick as
shelling peas. Ma foi! there were those who wished that he would have
less care for their souls and a little more for their bodies!”
“It is well to have a learned clerk in every troop,” said Sir Nigel. “By
St. Paul, there are men so caitiff that they think more of a scrivener's
pen than of their lady's smile, and do their devoir in hopes that they
may fill a line in a chronicle or make a tag to a jongleur's romance. I
remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek,
fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or
tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find
it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet
in the camp. But, my soul's bird, you hear me prate as though all were
decided, when I have not yet taken counsel either with you or with my
lady mother. Let us to the chamber, while these strangers find such fare
as pantry and cellar may furnish.”
“The night air strikes chill,” said the lady, and turned down the road
with her hand upon her lord's arm. The three comrades dropped behind and
followed: Aylward much the lighter for having accomplished his mission,
Alleyne full of wonderment at the humble bearing of so renowned
a captain, and John loud with snorts and sneers, which spoke his