The White Company
Eliza and the travelling doctor had flung themselves between the two
parties with soft words and soothing gestures, when the door of the
“Pied Merlin” was flung violently open, and the attention of the company
was drawn from their own quarrel to the new-comer who had burst so
unceremoniously upon them.
CHAPTER VI. 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 hazel-nut, 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 wont to set his face against danger. A straight
sword by his side and a painted long-bow jutting over his shoulder
proclaimed his profession, while his scarred brigandine 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 broom at the side of his head-gear gave a touch of
gayety and grace to his grim, war-worn equipment.
“Ha!” he cried, blinking like an owl in the sudden glare. “Good even
to you, comrades! Hola! a woman, by my soul!” and in 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.
“La petite is 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! camarades, there is no drop of
French blood in my body, and I am a true English bowman, Samkin Aylward
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 Hythe, this very day, I down on my bones, and I kissed the good brown
earth, as I kiss thee now, ma 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? Hola, 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--a French feather-bed with the two counter-panes of white
sendall,” said he.
“Here, worthy sir,” answered the first of the bearers, laying a great
package down in the corner.
“Number two--seven ells of red Turkey cloth and nine ells of cloth of
gold. Put it down by the other. Good dame, I prythee give each of these
men a bottrine of wine or a jack of ale. Three--a full piece of white
Genoan velvet with twelve ells of purple silk. Thou rascal, there is
dirt on the hem! Thou hast brushed it against some wall, coquin!”
“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 you 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, camarades, at the Church of
St. Denis 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 minever, a gold goblet with stand and cover, and a box of
rose-colored sugar. See that you lay them together. Six--a box of
monies, three pounds of Limousine gold-work, a pair of boots, silver
tagged, and, lastly, a store of naping linen. So, the tally is complete!
Here is a groat apiece, and you may go.”
“Go whither, worthy sir?” asked one of the carriers.
“Whither? To the devil if ye will. What is it to me? Now, ma belle, to
supper. A pair of cold capons, a mortress of brawn, or what you will,
with a flask or two of the right Gascony. I have crowns in my pouch,
my sweet, and I mean to spend them. Bring in wine while the food is
dressing. Buvons my brave lads; you shall each empty a stoup with me.”
Here was an offer which the company in an English inn at that or any
other date are slow to refuse. The flagons were re-gathered and came
back with the white foam dripping over their edges. Two of the woodmen
and three of the laborers 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 honor to the right
of the gleeman to the free-handed new-comer. He had thrown off his steel
cap and his brigandine, and had placed them with his sword, his quiver
and his painted long-bow, on the top of his varied heap of plunder in
the corner. Now, with his thick and somewhat bowed legs stretched in
front of the blaze, his green jerkin 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. Alleyne
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 flagon and drank to
him, with a merry flash of his white teeth.
“A toi, mon garcon,” he cried. “Hast surely never seen a man-at-arms,
that thou shouldst stare so?”
“I never have,” said Alleyne frankly, “though I have oft heard talk of
their deeds.”
“By my hilt!” cried the other, “if you were to cross the narrow sea you
would find them as thick as bees at a tee-hole. Couldst not shoot a
bolt down any street of Bordeaux, I warrant, but you would pink archer,
squire, or knight. There are more breastplates than gaberdines 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 as much more waiting for any brave lad to pick it up.
Where a good man can always earn a good wage, and where he need look
upon no man as his paymaster, but just reach his hand out and help
himself. Aye, it is a goodly and a proper life. And here I drink to
mine old comrades, and the saints be with them! Arouse all together,
mes enfants, under pain of my displeasure. To Sir Claude Latour and the
White Company!”
“Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!” shouted the travellers,
draining off their goblets.
“Well quaffed, mes braves! It is for me to fill your cups again, since
you have drained them to my dear lads of the white jerkin. Hola! mon
ange, bring wine and ale. How runs the old stave?--
We'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.”
He roared out the catch in a harsh, unmusical voice, and ended with a
shout of laughter. “I trust that I am a better bowman than a minstrel,”
said he.
“Methinks I have some remembrance of the lilt,” remarked the gleeman,
running his fingers over the strings. “Hoping that it will give thee no
offence, most holy sir”--with a vicious snap at Alleyne--“and with the
kind permit of the company, I will even venture upon it.”
Many a time in the after days Alleyne Edricson seemed to see that scene,
for all that so many which were stranger and more stirring were soon
to crowd upon him. The fat, red-faced gleeman, the listening group, the
archer with upraised finger beating in time to the music, and the huge
sprawling figure of Hordle 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 jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings,
and the lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad
of the outland bowmen, 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 are free
Love 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 bowmen 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 gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.
What of the men?
The men were bred in England:
The bowman--the yeoman--
The lads of dale and 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 war-time and after in the
days of the White Company, when Black Simon of Norwich would lead the
stave, and four hundred of the best bowmen that ever drew string would
come roaring in upon the chorus. I have seen old John Hawkwood, 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 ye must yourselves be English bowmen, and be far off upon an
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 tranchoir of bread, and finally the smoking dish which
held the savory 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 a laborer.
“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 knight's lady shall be better
betrimmed and betrinketed. How of all that, mon garcon? And how of the