of that house which for ages was the bar upon the
landward gate of England, showed his blue lion rampant as leader of the
Grace Dieu. Such was the goodly company Saint-Malo bound, who warped
from Calais Harbor to plunge into the thick reek of a Channel mist.

A slight breeze blew from the eastward, and the highended, round-bodied
craft rolled slowly down the Channel. The mist rose a little at times,
so that they had sight of each other dipping and rising upon a sleek,
oily sea, but again it would sink down, settling over the top, shrouding
the great yard, and finally frothing over the deck until even the water
alongside had vanished from their view and they were afloat on a little
raft in an ocean of vapor. A thin cold rain was falling, and the archers
were crowded under the shelter of the overhanging poop and forecastle,
where some spent the hours at dice, some in sleep, and many in trimming
their arrows or polishing their weapons.

At the farther end, seated on a barrel as a throne of honor, with
trays and boxes of feathers around him, was Bartholomew the bowyer and
Fletcher, a fat, bald-headed man, whose task it was to see that every
man's tackle was as it should be, and who had the privilege of selling
such extras as they might need. A group of archers with their staves and
quivers filed before him with complaints or requests, while half a dozen
of the seniors gathered at his back and listened with grinning faces to
his comments and rebukes.

"Canst not string it?" he was saying to a young bowman. "Then surely the
string is overshort or the stave overlong. It could not by chance be the
fault of thy own baby arms more fit to draw on thy hosen than to dress a
warbow. Thou lazy lurdan, thus is it strung!" He seized the stave by
the center in his right hand, leaned the end on the inside of his right
foot, and then, pulling the upper nock down with the left hand, slid
the eye of the string easily into place. "Now I pray thee to unstring it
again," handing it to the bowman.

The youth with an effort did so, but he was too slow in disengaging his
fingers, and the string sliding down with a snap from the upper nock
caught and pinched them sorely against the stave. A roar of laughter,
like the clap of a wave, swept down the deck as the luckless bowman
danced and wrung his hand.

"Serve thee well right, thou redeless fool!" growled the old bowyer.
"So fine a bow is wasted in such hands. How now, Samkin? I can teach you
l