Part 33 (2/2)

He pointed to a live-oak by the roadside, and rode onward upon his way in converse with his fellow-knights. But the old bowman had ridden after him.

”If it please you, Sir Robert, the bowmen would fain put these men to death in their own fas.h.i.+on,” said he.

”So that they die, I care not how,” Knolles answered carelessly, and looked back no more.

Human life was cheap in those stern days when the footmen of a stricken army or the crew of a captured s.h.i.+p were slain without any question or thought of mercy by the victors. War was a rude game with death for the stake, and the forfeit was always claimed on the one side and paid on the other without doubt or hesitation. Only the knight might be spared, since his ransom made him worth more alive than dead. To men trained in such a school, with death forever hanging over their own heads, it may be well believed that the slaying of two peasant murderers was a small matter.

And yet there was special reason why upon this occasion the bowmen wished to keep the deed in their own hands. Ever since their dispute aboard the Basilisk, there had been ill-feeling betwixt Bartholomew the old bald-headed bowyer, and long Ned Widdington the Dalesman, which had ended in a conflict at Dinan, in which not only they, but a dozen of their friends had been laid upon the cobble-stones. The dispute raged round their respective knowledge and skill with the bow, and now some quick wit amongst the soldiers had suggested a grim fas.h.i.+on in which it should be put to the proof, once for all, which could draw the surer shaft.

A thick wood lay two hundred paces from the road upon which the archers stood. A stretch of smooth gra.s.sy sward lay between. The two peasants were led out fifty yards from the road, with their faces toward the wood. There they stood, held on a leash, and casting many a wondering frightened glance over their shoulders at the preparations which were being made behind them.

Old Bartholomew and the big Yorks.h.i.+reman had stepped out of the ranks and stood side by side each with his strung bow in his left hand and a single arrow in his right. With care they had drawn on and greased their shooting-gloves and fastened their bracers. They plucked and cast up a few blades of gra.s.s to measure the wind, examined every small point of their tackle, turned their sides to the mark, and widened their feet in a firmer stance. From all sides came chaff and counsel from their comrades.

”A three-quarter wind, bowyer!” cried one. ”Aim a body's breadth to the right!”

”But not thy body's breadth, bowyer,” laughed another. ”Else may you be overwide.”

”Nay, this wind will scarce turn a well-drawn shaft,” said a third.

”Shoot dead upon him and you will be clap in the clout.”

”Steady, Ned, for the good name of the Dales,” cried a Yorks.h.i.+reman.

”Loose easy and pluck not, or I am five crowns the poorer man.”

”A week's pay on Bartholomew!” shouted another. ”Now, old fat-pate, fail me not!”

”Enough, enough! Stint your talk!” cried the old bowman, Wat of Carlisle. ”Were your shafts as quick as your tongues there would be no facing you. Do you shoot upon the little one, Bartholomew, and you, Ned, upon the other. Give them law until I cry the word, then loose in your own fas.h.i.+on and at your own time. Are you ready! Hola, there, Hayward, Beddington, let them run!”

The leashes were torn away, and the two men, stooping their heads, ran madly for the shelter of the wood amid such a howl from the archers as beaters may give when the hare starts from its form. The two bowmen, each with his arrow drawn to the pile, stood like russet statues, menacing, motionless, their eager eyes fixed upon the fugitives, their bow-staves rising slowly as the distance between them lengthened. The Bretons were half-way to the wood, and still Old Wat was silent. It may have been mercy or it may have been mischief, but at least the chase should have a fair chance of life. At six score paces he turned his grizzled head at last.

”Loose!” he cried.

At the word the Yorks.h.i.+reman's bow-string tw.a.n.ged. It was not for nothing that he had earned the name of being one of the deadliest archers of the North and had twice borne away the silver arrow of Selby.

Swift and true flew the fatal shaft and buried itself to the feather in the curved back of the long yellow-haired peasant. Without a sound he fell upon his face and lay stone-dead upon the gra.s.s, the one short white plume between his dark shoulders to mark where Death had smote him.

The Yorks.h.i.+reman threw his bowstave into the air and danced in triumph, whilst his comrades roared their fierce delight in a shout of applause, which changed suddenly into a tempest of hooting and of laughter.

The smaller peasant, more cunning, than his comrade, had run more slowly, but with many a backward glance. He had marked his companion's fate and had waited with keen eyes until he saw the bowyer loose his string. At the moment he had thrown himself flat upon the gra.s.s and had heard the arrow scream above him,--and seen it quiver in the turf beyond. Instantly he had sprung to his feet again and amid wild whoops and halloos from the bowmen had made for the shelter of the wood. Now he had reached it, and ten score good paces separated him from the nearest of his persecutors. Surely they could not reach him here. With the tangled brushwood behind him he was as safe as a rabbit at the mouth of his burrow. In the joy of his heart he must needs dance in derision and snap his fingers at the foolish men who had let him slip. He threw back his head, howling at them like a dog, and at the instant an arrow struck him full in the throat and laid him dead among the bracken. There was a hush of surprised silence and then a loud cheer burst from the archers.

”By the rood of Beverley!” cried old Wat, ”I have not seen a finer roving shaft this many a year. In my own best day I could not have bettered it. Which of you loosed it?”

”It was Aylward of Tilford--Samkin Aylward,” cried a score of voices, and the bowman, flushed at his own fame, was pushed to the front.

”Indeed I would that it had been at a n.o.bler mark,” said he. ”He might have gone free for me, but I could not keep my fingers from the string when he turned to jeer at us.”

”I see well that you are indeed a master-bowman,” said old Wat, ”and it is comfort to my soul to think that if I fall I leave such a man behind me to hold high the credit of our craft. Now gather your shafts and on, for Sir Robert awaits us on the brow of the hill.”

All day Knolles and his men marched through the same wild and deserted country, inhabited only by these furtive creatures, hares to the strong and wolves to the weak, who hovered in the shadows of the wood. Ever and anon upon the tops of the hills they caught a glimpse of hors.e.m.e.n who watched them from a distance and vanished when approached. Sometimes bells rang an alarm from villages amongst the hills, and twice they pa.s.sed castles which drew up their drawbridges at their approach and lined their walls with hooting soldiers as they pa.s.sed. The Englishmen gathered a few oxen and sheep from the pastures of each, but Knolles had no mind to break his strength upon stone walls, and so he went upon his way.

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