d

the many strange folk whom he had met at the "pied merlin."

chapter vii.

how the three comrades journeyed through the woodlands.

at early dawn the country inn was all alive, for it was rare

indeed that an hour of daylight would be wasted at a time when

lighting was so scarce and dear. indeed, early as it was when

dame eliza began to stir, it seemed that others could be earlier

still, for the door was ajar, and the learned student of

cambridge had taken himself off, with a mind which was too intent

upon the high things of antiquity to stoop to consider the four-

pence which he owed for bed and board. it was the shrill out-cry

of the landlady when she found her loss, and the clucking of the

hens, which had streamed in through the open door, that first

broke in upon the slumbers of the tired wayfarers.

once afoot, it was not long before the company began to disperse.

a sleek mule with red trappings was brought round from some

neighboring shed for the physician, and he ambled away with much

dignity upon his road to southampton. the tooth-drawer and the

gleeman called for a cup of small ale apiece, and started off

together for ringwood fair, the old jongleur looking very yellow

in the eye and swollen in the face after his overnight potations.

the archer, however, who had drunk more than any man in the room,

was as merry as a grig, and having kissed the matron and chased

the maid up the ladder once more, he went out to the brook, and

came back with the water dripping from his face and hair.

"hola! my man of peace," he cried to alleyne, "whither are you

bent this morning?"

"to minstead," quoth he. "my brother simon edricson is socman

there, and i go to bide with him for a while. i prythee, let me

have my score, good dame."

"score, indeed!" cried she, standing with upraised hands in front

of the panel on which alleyne had worked the night before. "say,

rather what it is that i owe to thee, good youth. aye, this is

indeed a pied merlin, and with a leveret under its claws, as i am

a living woman. by the rood of waltham! but thy touch is deft

and dainty."

"and see the red eye of it!" cried the maid.

"aye, and the open beak."

"and the ruffled wing," added hordle john.

"by my hilt!" cried the archer, "it is the very bird itself."

the young clerk flushed with pleasure at this chorus of praise,

rude and indiscriminate indeed, and yet so much heartier and less

grudging than any which he had ever heard from the critical

brother jerome, or the short-spoken abbot. there was, it would

seem, great kindness as well as great wickedness in this world,

of which he had heard so little that was good. his hostess would

hear nothing of his paying either for bed or for board, while the

archer and hordle john placed a hand upon either shoulder and led

him off to the board, where some smoking fish, a dish of spinach,

and a jug of milk were laid out for their breakfast.

"i should not be surprised to learn, mon camarade," said the

soldier, as he heaped a slice of fish upon alleyne's tranchoir of

bread, "that you could read written things, since you are so

ready with your brushes and pigments."

"it would be shame to the good brothers of beaulieu if i could

not," he answered, "seeing that i have been their clerk this ten

years back."

the bowman looked at him with great respect. "think of that!"

said he. "and you with not a hair to your face, and a skin like

a girl. i can shoot three hundred and fifty paces with my little

popper there, and four hundred and twenty with the great war-bow;

yet i can make nothing of this, nor read my own name if you were

to set 'sam aylward' up against me. in the whole company there

was only one man who could read, and he fell down a well at the

taking of ventadour, which proves what the thing is not suited to

a soldier, though most needful to a clerk."

"i can make some show at it," said big john; "though i was scarce

long enough among the monks to catch the whole trick of it.

"here, then, is something to try upon," quoth the archer, pulling

a square of parchment from the inside of his tunic. it was tied

securely with a broad band of purple silk, and firmly sealed at

either end with a large red seal. john pored long and earnestly

over the inscription upon the back, with his brows bent as one

who bears up against great mental strain.

"not having read much of late," he said, "i am loth to say too

much about what this may be. some might say one thing and some

another, just as one bowman loves the yew, and a second will not

shoot save with the ash. to me, by the length and the look of

it, i should judge this to be a verse from one of the psalms."

the bowman shook his head. "it is scarce likely," he said, "that

sir claude latour should send me all the way across seas with

nou