d. The
Bretons were half-way to the wood, and still Old Wat was silent. It may
have been mercy or it may have been mischief, but at least the chase
should have a fair chance of life. At six score paces he turned his
grizzled head at last.

"Loose!" he cried.

At the word the Yorkshireman's bow-string twanged. It was not for
nothing that he had earned the name of being one of the deadliest
archers of the North and had twice borne away the silver arrow of Selby.
Swift and true flew the fatal shaft and buried itself to the feather in
the curved back of the long yellow-haired peasant. Without a sound he
fell upon his face and lay stone-dead upon the grass, the one short
white plume between his dark shoulders to mark where Death had smote
him.

The Yorkshireman threw his bowstave into the air and danced in triumph,
whilst his comrades roared their fierce delight in a shout of applause,
which changed suddenly into a tempest of hooting and of laughter.

The smaller peasant, more cunning, than his comrade, had run more
slowly, but with many a backward glance. He had marked his companion's
fate and had waited with keen eyes until he saw the bowyer loose his
string. At the moment he had thrown himself flat upon the grass and
had heard the arrow scream above him,--and seen it quiver in the turf
beyond. Instantly he had sprung to his feet again and amid wild whoops
and halloos from the bowmen had made for the shelter of the wood. Now he
had reached it, and ten score good paces separated him from the nearest
of his persecutors. Surely they could not reach him here. With the
tangled brushwood behind him he was as safe as a rabbit at the mouth of
his burrow. In the joy of his heart he must needs dance in derision and
snap his fingers at the foolish men who had let him slip. He threw back
his head, howling at them like a dog, and at the instant an arrow struck
him full in the throat and laid him dead among the bracken. There was a
hush of surprised silence and then a loud cheer burst from the archers.

"By the rood of Beverley!" cried old Wat, "I have not seen a finer
roving shaft this many a year. In my own best day I could not have
bettered it. Which of you loosed it?"

"It was Aylward of Tilford--Samkin Aylward," cried a score of voices,
and the bowman, flushed at his own fame, was pushed to the front.

"Indeed I would that it had been at a nobler mark," said he. "He might
have gone free for me, but I could not keep my finge