h party."

"He played a good sword?" I asked.

"He threw a good stone! Man, it was a stone bicker, and they had lids of
baskets for targes."

"And he challenges me to the field," I said hotly, "By St. Andrew! I
will cuff his ears and send him back to the other boys."

"Norman, my lad, when were you in a stone bicker last?" quoth Randal; and
I hung my head, for it was not yet six months gone since the sailors and
we students were stoning each other in North Street.

"Yet he does play a very good sword, and is cunning of fence, for your
comfort," said Randal. So I hummed the old lilt of the Leslies, whence,
they say, comes our name--

Between the less lea and the mair,
He slew the knight and left him there;--

for I deemed it well to show a good face. Moreover, I had some conceit
of myself as a swordsman, and Randal was laughing like a foolbody at my
countenance.

"Faith, you will make a spoon or spoil a horn, and--let me have my laugh
out--you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me
to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on
his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down
the steep ways into Chinon.

First I would go to the tailor and the cordwainer, and be fitted for my
new splendours as an archer of the guard.

They both laughed at me again, for, said they very cheerfully, "You may
never live to wear these fine feathers."

But Randal making the reflection that, if I fell, there would be none to
pay the shopmaster, they both shouted with delight in the street, so that
passers-by turned and marvelled at them. Clearly I saw that to go to
fight a duel is one thing, and to go and look on is another, and much
more gay, for my heart had no desire of all this merriment. Rather would
I have recommended my case to the saints, and chiefly to St. Andrew, for
whose cause and honour I was about to put my life in jeopardy. But
shame, and the fear of seeming fearful, drove me to jest with the
others--such risks of dying unconfessed are run by sinful men!

Howbeit, they helped me to choose cloth of the best colour and fashion,
laughing the more because I, being short of stature and slim, the tailor,
if I fell, might well find none among the archers to purchase that for
which, belike, I should have no need.

"We must even enlist the Pucelle in our guard, for she might wear this
apparel," quoth Randal.

Thus boisterously they bore t