ou say sooth," said Johnston, turning his seamed and grizzled face
upon the man-at-arms. "See yonder," he added, pointing to a bombard
which lay within the camp: "there is what hath done scath to good
bowmanship, with its filthy soot and foolish roaring mouth. I wonder
that a true knight, like our prince, should carry such a scurvy thing in
his train. Robin, thou red-headed lurden, how oft must I tell thee not
to shoot straight with a quarter-wind blowing across the mark?"

"By these ten finger-bones! there were some fine bowmen at the intaking
of Calais," said Aylward. "I well remember that, on occasion of an
outfall, a Genoan raised his arm over his mantlet, and shook it at us, a
hundred paces from our line. There were twenty who loosed shafts at him,
and when the man was afterwards slain it was found that he had taken
eighteen through his forearm."

"And I can call to mind," remarked Johnston, "that when the great
cog 'Christopher,' which the French had taken from us, was moored two
hundred paces from the shore, two archers, little Robin Withstaff and
Elias Baddlesmere, in four shots each cut every strand of her hempen
anchor-cord, so that she well-nigh came upon the rocks."

"Good shooting, i' faith rare shooting!" said Black Simon. "But I have
seen you, Johnston, and you, Samkin Aylward, and one or two others who
are still with us, shoot as well as the best. Was it not you, Johnston,
who took the fat ox at Finsbury butts against the pick of London town?"

A sunburnt and black-eyed Brabanter had stood near the old archers,
leaning upon a large crossbow and listening to their talk, which had
been carried on in that hybrid camp dialect which both nations could
understand. He was a squat, bull-necked man, clad in the iron helmet,
mail tunic, and woollen gambesson of his class. A jacket with hanging
sleeves, slashed with velvet at the neck and wrists, showed that he was
a man of some consideration, an under-officer, or file-leader of his
company.

"I cannot think," said he, "why you English should be so fond of your
six-foot stick. If it amuse you to bend it, well and good; but why
should I strain and pull, when my little moulinet will do all for me,
and better than I can do it for myself?"

"I have seen good shooting with the prod and with the latch," said
Aylward, "but, by my hilt! camarade, with all respect to you and to your
bow, I think that is but a woman's weapon, which a woman can point and
loose as easily