re.

CHAPTER XXXIV. HOW THE COMPANY MADE SPORT IN THE VALE OF PAMPELUNA.

Whilst the council was sitting in Pampeluna the White Company, having
encamped in a neighboring valley, close to the companies of La Nuit and
of Black Ortingo, were amusing themselves with sword-play, wrestling,
and shooting at the shields, which they had placed upon the hillside
to serve them as butts. The younger archers, with their coats of mail
thrown aside, their brown or flaxen hair tossing in the wind, and their
jerkins turned back to give free play to their brawny chests and arms,
stood in lines, each loosing his shaft in turn, while Johnston, Aylward,
Black Simon, and half-a-score of the elders lounged up and down with
critical eyes, and a word of rough praise or of curt censure for the
marksmen. Behind stood knots of Gascon and Brabant crossbowmen from
the companies of Ortingo and of La Nuit, leaning upon their unsightly
weapons and watching the practice of the Englishmen.

"A good shot, Hewett, a good shot!" said old Johnston to a young bowman,
who stood with his bow in his left hand, gazing with parted lips after
his flying shaft. "You see, she finds the ring, as I knew she would from
the moment that your string twanged."

"Loose it easy, steady, and yet sharp," said Aylward. "By my hilt! mon
gar., it is very well when you do but shoot at a shield, but when there
is a man behind the shield, and he rides at you with wave of sword and
glint of eyes from behind his vizor, you may find him a less easy mark."

"It is a mark that I have found before now," answered the young bowman.

"And shall again, camarade, I doubt not. But hola! Johnston, who is this
who holds his bow like a crow-keeper?"

"It is Silas Peterson, of Horsham. Do not wink with one eye and look
with the other, Silas, and do not hop and dance after you shoot, with
your tongue out, for that will not speed it upon its way. Stand straight
and firm, as God made you. Move not the bow arm, and steady with the
drawing hand!"

"I' faith," said Black Simon, "I am a spearman myself, and am more
fitted for hand-strokes than for such work as this. Yet I have spent my
days among bowmen, and I have seen many a brave shaft sped. I will not
say but that we have some good marksmen here, and that this Company
would be accounted a fine body of archers at any time or place. Yet I
do not see any men who bend so strong a bow or shoot as true a shaft as
those whom I have known."

"Y