let ye shoot at him for a farthen a shoot!"

"Nay, Nick, there's some can draw a good bow yet," said Bennet.

"Draw a good bow!" cried Appleyard. "Yes! But who'll shoot me a good
shoot? It's there the eye comes in, and the head between your shoulders.
Now, what might you call a long shoot, Bennet Hatch?"

"Well," said Bennet, looking about him, "it would be a long shoot from
here into the forest."

"Ay, it would be a longish shoot," said the old fellow, turning to look
over his shoulder; and then he put up his hand over his eyes, and stood
staring.

"Why, what are you looking at?" asked Bennet, with a chuckle. "Do, you
see Harry the Fift?"

The veteran continued looking up the hill in silence. The sun shone
broadly over the shelving meadows; a few white sheep wandered browsing;
all was still but the distant jangle of the bell.

"What is it, Appleyard?" asked Dick.

"Why, the birds," said Appleyard.

And, sure enough, over the top of the forest, where it ran down in a
tongue among the meadows, and ended in a pair of goodly green elms, about
a bowshot from the field where they were standing, a flight of birds was
skimming to and fro, in evident disorder.

"What of the birds?" said Bennet.

"Ay!" returned Appleyard, "y' are a wise man to go to war, Master Bennet.
Birds are a good sentry; in forest places they be the first line of
battle. Look you, now, if we lay here in camp, there might be archers
skulking down to get the wind of us; and here would you be, none the
wiser!"

"Why, old shrew," said Hatch, "there be no men nearer us than Sir
Daniel's, at Kettley; y' are as safe as in London Tower; and ye raise
scares upon a man for a few chaffinches and sparrows!"

"Hear him!" grinned Appleyard. "How many a rogue would give his two crop
ears to have a shoot at either of us? Saint Michael, man! they hate us
like two polecats!"

"Well, sooth it is, they hate Sir Daniel," answered Hatch, a little
sobered.

"Ay, they hate Sir Daniel, and they hate every man that serves with him,"
said Appleyard; "and in the first order of hating, they hate Bennet Hatch
and old Nicholas the bowman. See ye here: if there was a stout fellow
yonder in the wood-edge, and you and I stood fair for him--as, by Saint
George, we stand!--which, think ye, would he choose?"

"You, for a good wager," answered Hatch.

"My surcoat to a leather belt, it would be you!" cried the old archer.
"Ye burned Grimstone, Bennet--they'll ne'e