The White Company
and it was he who brought down the Constable de Bourbon at Brignais. I
fear that your man will come by little honor with him.”
“Yet I have seen Johnston shoot these twenty years, and I will not
flinch from it. How say you, old war-hound, will you not have a flight
shot or two with this springald?”
“Tut, tut, Aylward,” said the old bowman. “My day is past, and it is
for the younger ones to hold what we have gained. I take it unkindly of
thee, Samkin, that thou shouldst call all eyes thus upon a broken bowman
who could once shoot a fair shaft. Let me feel that bow, Wilkins! It is
a Scotch bow, I see, for the upper nock is without and the lower within.
By the black rood! it is a good piece of yew, well nocked, well strung,
well waxed, and very joyful to the feel. I think even now that I might
hit any large and goodly mark with a bow like this. Turn thy quiver to
me, Aylward. I love an ash arrow pierced with cornel-wood for a roving
shaft.”
“By my hilt! and so do I,” cried Aylward. “These three gander-winged
shafts are such.”
“So I see, comrade. It has been my wont to choose a saddle-backed
feather for a dead shaft, and a swine-backed for a smooth flier. I will
take the two of them. Ah! Samkin, lad, the eye grows dim and the hand
less firm as the years pass.”
“Come then, are you not ready?” said the Brabanter, who had watched
with ill-concealed impatience the slow and methodic movements of his
antagonist.
“I will venture a rover with you, or try long-butts or hoyles,” said old
Johnston. “To my mind the long-bow is a better weapon than the arbalest,
but it may be ill for me to prove it.”
“So I think,” quoth the other with a sneer. He drew his moulinet from
his girdle, and fixing it to the windlass, he drew back the powerful
double cord until it had clicked into the catch. Then from his quiver he
drew a short, thick quarrel, which he placed with the utmost care upon
the groove. Word had spread of what was going forward, and the rivals
were already surrounded, not only by the English archers of the Company,
but by hundreds of arbalestiers and men-at-arms from the bands of
Ortingo and La Nuit, to the latter of which the Brabanter belonged.
“There is a mark yonder on the hill,” said he; “mayhap you can discern
it.”
“I see something,” answered Johnston, shading his eyes with his hand;
“but it is a very long shoot.”
“A fair shoot--a fair shoot! Stand aside, Arnaud, lest you find a bolt
through your gizzard. Now, comrade, I take no flight shot, and I give
you the vantage of watching my shaft.”
As he spoke he raised his arbalest to his shoulder and was about to pull
the trigger, when a large gray stork flapped heavily into view skimming
over the brow of the hill, and then soaring up into the air to pass the
valley. Its shrill and piercing cries drew all eyes upon it, and, as it
came nearer, a dark spot which circled above it resolved itself into a
peregrine falcon, which hovered over its head, poising itself from time
to time, and watching its chance of closing with its clumsy quarry.
Nearer and nearer came the two birds, all absorbed in their own contest,
the stork wheeling upwards, the hawk still fluttering above it, until
they were not a hundred paces from the camp. The Brabanter raised his
weapon to the sky, and there came the short, deep twang of his powerful
string. His bolt struck the stork just where its wing meets the body,
and the bird whirled aloft in a last convulsive flutter before falling
wounded and flapping to the earth. A roar of applause burst from the
crossbowmen; but at the instant that the bolt struck its mark old
Johnston, who had stood listlessly with arrow on string, bent his bow
and sped a shaft through the body of the falcon. Whipping the other from
his belt, he sent it skimming some few feet from the earth with so true
an aim that it struck and transfixed the stork for the second time ere
it could reach the ground. A deep-chested shout of delight burst from
the archers at the sight of this double feat, and Aylward, dancing with
joy, threw his arms round the old marksman and embraced him with such
vigor that their mail tunics clanged again.
“Ah! camarade,” he cried, “you shall have a stoup with me for this! What
then, old dog, would not the hawk please thee, but thou must have the
stork as well. Oh, to my heart again!”
“It is a pretty piece of yew, and well strung,” said Johnston with a
twinkle in his deep-set gray eyes. “Even an old broken bowman might find
the clout with a bow like this.”
“You have done very well,” remarked the Brabanter in a surly voice.
“But it seems to me that you have not yet shown yourself to be a better
marksman than I, for I have struck that at which I aimed, and, by the
three kings! no man can do more.”
“It would ill beseem me to claim to be a better marksman,” answered
Johnston, “for I have heard great things of your skill. I did but wish
to show that the long-bow could do that which an arbalest could not do,
for you could not with your moulinet have your string ready to speed
another shaft ere the bird drop to the earth.”
“In that you have vantage,” said the crossbowman. “By Saint James! it
is now my turn to show you where my weapon has the better of you. I pray
you to draw a flight shaft with all your strength down the valley, that
we may see the length of your shoot.”
“That is a very strong prod of yours,” said Johnston, shaking his
grizzled head as he glanced at the thick arch and powerful strings of
his rival's arbalest. “I have little doubt that you can overshoot me,
and yet I have seen bowmen who could send a cloth-yard arrow further
than you could speed a quarrel.”
“So I have heard,” remarked the Brabanter; “and yet it is a strange
thing that these wondrous bowmen are never where I chance to be. Pace
out the distances with a wand at every five score, and do you, Arnaud,
stand at the fifth wand to carry back my bolts to me.”
A line was measured down the valley, and Johnston, drawing an arrow to
the very head, sent it whistling over the row of wands.
“Bravely drawn! A rare shoot!” shouted the bystanders.
“It is well up to the fourth mark.”
“By my hilt! it is over it,” cried Aylward. “I can see where they have
stooped to gather up the shaft.”
“We shall hear anon,” said Johnston quietly, and presently a young
archer came running to say that the arrow had fallen twenty paces beyond
the fourth wand.
“Four hundred paces and a score,” cried Black Simon. “I' faith, it is a
very long flight. Yet wood and steel may do more than flesh and blood.”
The Brabanter stepped forward with a smile of conscious triumph, and
loosed the cord of his weapon. A shout burst from his comrades as they
watched the swift and lofty flight of the heavy bolt.
“Over the fourth!” groaned Aylward. “By my hilt! I think that it is well
up to the fifth.”
“It is over the fifth!” cried a Gascon loudly, and a comrade came
running with waving arms to say that the bolt had pitched eight paces
beyond the mark of the five hundred.
“Which weapon hath the vantage now?” cried the Brabanter, strutting
proudly about with shouldered arbalest, amid the applause of his
companions.
“You can overshoot me,” said Johnston gently.
“Or any other man who ever bent a long-bow,” cried his victorious
adversary.
“Nay, not so fast,” said a huge archer, whose mighty shoulders and red
head towered high above the throng of his comrades. “I must have a word
with you ere you crow so loudly. Where is my little popper? By sainted
Dick of Hampole! it will be a strange thing if I cannot outshoot that
thing of thine, which to my eyes is more like a rat-trap than a bow.
Will you try another flight, or do you stand by your last?”
“Five hundred and eight paces will serve my turn,” answered the
Brabanter, looking askance at this new opponent.
“Tut, John,” whispered Aylward, “you never were a marksman. Why must you
thrust your spoon into this dish?”
“Easy and slow, Aylward. There are very many things which I cannot do,
but there are also one or two which I have the trick of. It is in my
mind that I can beat this shoot, if my bow will but hold together.”
“Go on, old babe of the woods!” “Have at it, Hampshire!” cried the
archers laughing.
“By my soul! you may grin,” cried John. “But I learned how to make the
long shoot from old Hob Miller of Milford.” He took up a great black
bow, as he spoke, and sitting down upon the ground he placed his two
feet on either end of the stave. With an arrow fitted, he then pulled
the string towards him with both hands until the head of the shaft was
level with the wood. The great bow creaked and groaned and the cord
vibrated with the tension.
“Who is this fool's-head who stands in the way of my shoot?” said he,
craning up his neck from the ground.
“He stands on the further side of my mark,” answered the Brabanter, “so
he has little to fear from you.”
“Well, the saints assoil him!” cried John. “Though I think he is
over-near to be scathed.” As he spoke he raised his two feet, with the
bow-stave upon their soles, and his cord twanged with a deep rich hum
which might be heard across the valley. The measurer in the distance
fell flat upon his face, and then jumping up again, he began to run in
the opposite direction.
“Well shot, old lad! It is indeed over his head,” cried the bowmen.
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the Brabanter, “who ever saw such a shoot?”
“It is but a trick,” quoth John. “Many a time have I won a gallon of ale
by covering a mile in three flights down Wilverley Chase.”
“It fell a hundred and thirty paces beyond the fifth mark,” shouted an
archer in the distance.
“Six hundred and thirty paces! Mon Dieu! but that is a shoot! And yet it
says nothing for your weapon, mon gros camarade, for it was by turning
yourself into a crossbow that you did it.”
“By my hilt! there is truth in that,” cried Aylward. “And now, friend,
I will myself show you a vantage of the long-bow. I pray you to speed
a bolt against yonder shield with all your force. It is an inch of elm
with bull's hide over it.”
“I scarce shot as many shafts at Brignais,” growled the man of Brabant;
“though I found a better mark there than a cantle of bull's hide. But
what is this, Englishman? The shield hangs not one hundred paces from
me, and a blind man could strike it.” He screwed up his string to the
furthest pitch, and shot his quarrel at the dangling shield. Aylward,
who had drawn an arrow from his quiver, carefully greased the head of
it, and sped it at the same mark.
“Run, Wilkins,” quoth he, “and fetch me the shield.”
Long were the faces of the Englishmen and broad the laugh of the
crossbowmen as the heavy mantlet was carried towards them, for there in
the centre was the thick Brabant bolt driven deeply into the wood, while
there was neither sign nor trace of the cloth-yard shaft.
“By the three kings!” cried the Brabanter, “this time at least there is
no gainsaying which is the better weapon, or which the truer hand that
held it. You have missed the shield, Englishman.”
“Tarry a bit! tarry a bit, mon gar.!” quoth Aylward, and turning round
the shield he showed a round clear hole in the wood at the back of it.
“My shaft has passed through it, camarade, and I trow the one which goes
through is more to be feared than that which bides on the way.”
The Brabanter stamped his foot with mortification, and was about to make
some angry reply, when Alleyne Edricson came riding up to the crowds of
archers.
“Sir Nigel will be here anon,” said he, “and it is his wish to speak
with the Company.”
In an instant order and method took the place of general confusion.
Bows, steel caps, and jacks were caught up from the grass. A long cordon
cleared the camp of all strangers, while the main body fell into four