ke more clear. As
I understand it, there was peace made at the town of Bretigny some six
years back between our most gracious monarch and the King of the French.
This being so, it seems most passing strange that you should talk so
loudly of war and of companies when there is no quarrel between the
French and us."

"Meaning that I lie," said the archer, laying down his knife.

"May heaven forfend!" cried the student hastily. "_Magna est veritas sed
rara_, which means in the Latin tongue that archers are all honorable
men. I come to you seeking knowledge, for it is my trade to learn."

"I fear that you are yet a 'prentice to that trade," quoth the soldier;
"for there is no child over the water but could answer what you ask.
Know then that though there may be peace between our own provinces and
the French, yet within the marches of France there is always war, for
the country is much divided against itself, and is furthermore harried
by bands of flayers, skinners, Brabacons, tardvenus, and the rest of
them. When every man's grip is on his neighbor's throat, and every
five-sous-piece of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom
he will, it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys
could not pick up a living. Now that Sir John Hawkwood hath gone with
the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham woodmen into the service of the
Marquis of Montferrat to fight against the Lord of Milan, there are but
ten score of us left, yet I trust that I may be able to bring some back
with me to fill the ranks of the White Company. By the tooth of Peter!
it would be a bad thing if I could not muster many a Hamptonshire man
who would be ready to strike in under the red flag of St. George, and
the more so if Sir Nigel Loring, of Christchurch, should don hauberk
once more and take the lead of us."

"Ah, you would indeed be in luck then," quoth a woodman; "for it is said
that, setting aside the prince, and mayhap good old Sir John Chandos,
there was not in the whole army a man of such tried courage."

"It is sooth, every word of it," the archer answered. "I have seen him
with these two eyes in a stricken field, and never did man carry himself
better. Mon Dieu! yes, ye would not credit it to look at him, or to
hearken to his soft voice, but from the sailing from Orwell down to
the foray to Paris, and that is clear twenty years, there was not a
skirmish, onfall, sally, bushment, escalado or battle, but Sir Nigel was
in t