Part 12 (1/2)

Then he who stood near the target to mark ran forward, and screamed out:

”By G.o.d's name, he has shattered Jack Green's centre arrow, and shot _clean through the clout!_”

Then from all sides rose the old archer cry, ”_He, He! He, He!_” while the young Prince threw his cap on high, and the King said:

”Would that there were more such men as this in England! Jack Green, it seems that you are beaten.”

”Nay,” said Grey d.i.c.k, seating himself again upon the gra.s.s, ”there is naught to choose between us in this round. What next, your Grace?”

Only Hugh, who watched him, saw the big veins swell beneath the pale skin of his forehead, as they ever did when he was moved.

”The war game,” said the King; ”that is, if you will, for here rough knocks may be going. Set it out, one of you.”

Then a captain of the archers explained this sport. In short it was that man should stand against man clad in leather jerkins, and wearing a vizor to protect the face, and shoot at each other with blunt arrows rubbed with chalk, he who first took what would have been a mortal wound to be held worsted.

”I like not blunted arrows,” said Grey d.i.c.k; ”or, for the matter of that, any other arrows save my own. Against how many must I play? The three?”

The captain nodded.

”Then, by your leave, I will take them all at once.”

Now some said that this was not fair, but in the end d.i.c.k won his point, and those archers whom he had beaten, among them Jack Green, were placed against him, standing five yards apart, and blunted arrows served out to all. d.i.c.k set one of them on the string, and laid the two others in front of them. Then a knight rode to halfway between them, but a little to one side, and shouted: ”Loose!”

As the word struck his ear d.i.c.k shot with wonderful swiftness, and almost as the arrow left the bow flung himself down, grasping another as he fell. Next instant, three shafts whistled over where he had stood.

But his found its mark on the body of him at whom he had aimed, causing the man to stagger backward and throw down his bow, as he was bound to do, if hit.

Next instant d.i.c.k was up again and his second arrow flew, striking full and fair before ever he at whom it was aimed had drawn.

Now there remained Jack Green alone, and, as d.i.c.k set the third arrow, but before he could draw, Jack Green shot.

”Beat!” said d.i.c.k, and stood quite still.

At him rushed the swift shaft, and pa.s.sed over his shoulder within a hairbreadth of his ear. Then came d.i.c.k's turn. On Jack Green's cap was an archer's plume.

”Mark the plume, lords,” he said, and lo! the feather leapt from that cap.

Now there was silence. No one spoke, but d.i.c.k drew out three more arrows.

”Tell me, captain,” he said, ”is your ground marked out in scores; and what is the farthest that any one of you has sent a flighting shot?”

”Ay,” answered the officer, ”and twenty score and one yard is the farthest, nor has that been done for many a day.”

d.i.c.k steadied himself, and seemed to fill his lungs with air. Then, stretching his long arms to the full, he drew the great bow till the horns looked as though they came quite close together, and loosed. High and far flew that shaft; men's eyes could scarcely follow it, and all must wait long before a man came running to say where it had fallen.

”Twenty score and two yards!” he cried.

”Not much to win by,” grunted d.i.c.k, ”though enough. I have done twenty and one score once, but that was somewhat downhill.”

Then, while the silence still reigned, he set the second arrow on the string, and waited, as though he knew not what to do. Presently, about fifty paces from him, a wood dove flew from out a tree and, as such birds do at the first breath of spring, for the day was mild and sunny, hovered a moment in the air ere it dipped toward a great fir where doubtless it had built for years. Never, poor fowl, was it destined to build again, for as it turned its beak downward d.i.c.k's shaft pierced it through and through and bore it onward to the earth.