here you
are as sprack a squire and as lusty an archer as ever passed down the
highway from Bordeaux, while I am still the same old Samkin Aylward,
with never a change, save that I have a few more sins on my soul and a
few less crowns in my pouch. But I have never yet heard, John, what the
reason was why you should come out of Beaulieu."

"There were seven reasons," said John thoughtfully. "The first of them
was that they threw me out."

"Ma foi! camarade, to the devil with the other six! That is enough for
me and for thee also. I can see that they are very wise and discreet
folk at Beaulieu. Ah! mon ange, what have you in the pipkin?"

"It is milk, worthy sir," answered the peasant-maid, who stood by the
door of a cottage with a jug in her hand. "Would it please you, gentles,
that I should bring you out three horns of it?"

"Nay, ma petite, but here is a two-sous piece for thy kindly tongue and
for the sight of thy pretty face. Ma foi! but she has a bonne mine. I
have a mind to bide and speak with her."

"Nay, nay, Aylward," cried Alleyne. "Sir Nigel will await us, and he in
haste."

"True, true, camarade! Adieu, ma cherie! mon coeur est toujours a
toi. Her mother is a well-grown woman also. See where she digs by the
wayside. Ma foi! the riper fruit is ever the sweeter. Bon jour, ma belle
dame! God have you in his keeping! Said Sir Nigel where he would await
us?"

"At Marmande or Aiguillon. He said that we could not pass him, seeing
that there is but the one road."

"Aye, and it is a road that I know as I know the Midhurst parish
butts," quoth the bowman. "Thirty times have I journeyed it, forward and
backward, and, by the twang of string! I am wont to come back this way
more laden than I went. I have carried all that I had into France in
a wallet, and it hath taken four sumpter-mules to carry it back again.
God's benison on the man who first turned his hand to the making of war!
But there, down in the dingle, is the church of Cardillac, and you may
see the inn where three poplars grow beyond the village. Let us on, for
a stoup of wine would hearten us upon our way."

The highway had lain through the swelling vineyard country, which
stretched away to the north and east in gentle curves, with many a
peeping spire and feudal tower, and cluster of village houses, all clear
cut and hard in the bright wintry air. To their right stretched the blue
Garonne, running swiftly seawards, with boats and barges dotted ov