down now to a gentle breeze, which
wafted to his ears the long-drawn stirring bugle-calls which sounded
from the ancient ramparts.

"Hola, mon petit!" said Aylward, coming up to where he stood. "Thou art
a squire now, and like enough to win the golden spurs, while I am still
the master-bowman, and master-bowman I shall bide. I dare scarce wag
my tongue so freely with you as when we tramped together past Wilverley
Chase, else I might be your guide now, for indeed I know every house in
Bordeaux as a friar knows the beads on his rosary."

"Nay, Aylward," said Alleyne, laying his hand upon the sleeve of his
companion's frayed jerkin, "you cannot think me so thrall as to throw
aside an old friend because I have had some small share of good fortune.
I take it unkind that you should have thought such evil of me."

"Nay, mon gar. 'Twas but a flight shot to see if the wind blew steady,
though I were a rogue to doubt it."

"Why, had I not met you, Aylward, at the Lynhurst inn, who can say where
I had now been! Certes, I had not gone to Twynham Castle, nor become
squire to Sir Nigel, nor met----" He paused abruptly and flushed to his
hair, but the bowman was too busy with his own thoughts to notice his
young companion's embarrassment.

"It was a good hostel, that of the 'Pied Merlin,'" he remarked. "By my
ten finger bones! when I hang bow on nail and change my brigandine for a
tunic, I might do worse than take over the dame and her business."

"I thought," said Alleyne, "that you were betrothed to some one at
Christchurch."

"To three," Aylward answered moodily, "to three. I fear I may not go
back to Christchurch. I might chance to see hotter service in Hampshire
than I have ever done in Gascony. But mark you now yonder lofty turret
in the centre, which stands back from the river and hath a broad banner
upon the summit. See the rising sun flashes full upon it and sparkles
on the golden lions. 'Tis the royal banner of England, crossed by the
prince's label. There he dwells in the Abbey of St. Andrew, where he
hath kept his court these years back. Beside it is the minster of the
same saint, who hath the town under his very special care."

"And how of yon gray turret on the left?"

"'Tis the fane of St. Michael, as that upon the right is of St. Remi.
There, too, above the poop of yonder nief, you see the towers of Saint
Croix and of Pey Berland. Mark also the mighty ramparts which are
pierced by the three water-gates, and