up the wealth of the country would be gone, and

mayhap there would be dry throats and gaping mouths in england,

for in three months' time these black roots will blossom and

snoot and burgeon, and from them will come many a good ship-load

of medoc and gascony which will cross the narrow seas. but see

the church in the hollow, and the folk who cluster in the

churchyard! by my hilt! it is a burial, and there is a passing

bell!" he pulled off his steel cap as he spoke and crossed

himself, with a muttered prayer for the repose of the dead.

"there too," remarked alleyne, as they rode on again, "that which

seems to the eye to be dead is still full of the sap of life,

even as the vines were. thus god hath written himself and his

laws very broadly on all that is around us, if our poor dull eyes

and duller souls could but read what he hath set before us."

"ha! mon petit," cried the bowman, "you take me back to the days

when you were new fledged, as sweet a little chick as ever pecked

his way out of a monkish egg. i had feared that in gaining our

debonair young man-at-arms we had lost our soft-spoken clerk. in

truth, i have noted much change in you since we came from twynham

castle."

"surely it would be strange else, seeing that i have lived in a

world so new to me. yet i trust that there are many things in

which i have not changed. if i have turned to serve an earthly

master, and to carry arms for an earthly king, it would be an ill

thing if i were to lose all thought of the great high king and

master of all, whose humble and unworthy servant i was ere ever i

left beaulieu. you, john, are also from the cloisters, but i

trow that you do not feel that you have deserted the old service

in taking on the new."

"i am a slow-witted man," said john, "and, in sooth, when l try

to think about such matters it casts a gloom upon me. yet i do

not look upon myself as a worse man in an archer's jerkin than i

was in a white cowl, if that be what you mean."

"you have but changed from one white company to the other," quoth

aylward. "but, by these ten finger-bones! it is a passing

strange thing to me to think that it was but in the last fall of

the leaf that we walked from lyndhurst together, he so gentle and

maidenly, and you, john, like a great red-limbed overgrown moon-

calf; and now here you are as sprack a squire and as lusty an

archer as ever passed down the highway from bordeaux, while i am

still the same old samkin aylward, with never a change, save that

i have a few more sins on my soul and a few less crowns in my

pouch. but i have never yet heard, john, what the reason was why

you should come out of beaulieu."

"there were seven reasons," said john thoughtfully. "the first

of them was that they threw me out."

"ma foi! camarade, to the devil with the other six! that is

enough for me and for thee also. i can see that they are very

wise and discreet folk at beaulieu. ah! mon ange, what have you

in the pipkin?"

"it is milk, worthy sir," answered the peasant-maid, who stood by

the door of a cottage with a jug in her hand. "would it please

you, gentles, that i should bring you out three horns of it?"

"nay, ma petite, but here is a two-sous piece for thy kindly

tongue and for the sight of thy pretty face. ma foi! but she has

a bonne mine. i have a mind to bide and speak with her."

"nay, nay, aylward," cried alleyne. "sir nigel will await us,

and he in haste."

"true, true, camarade! adieu, ma cherie! mon coeur est toujours

a toi. her mother is a well-grown woman also. see where she

digs by the wayside. ma foi! the riper fruit is ever the

sweeter. bon jour, ma belle dame! god have you in his keeping!

said sir nigel where he would await us?"

"at marmande or aiguillon. he said that we could not pass him,

seeing that there is but the one road."

"aye, and it is a road that i know as i know the midhurst parish

butts," quoth the bowman. "thirty times have i journeyed it,

forward and backward, and, by the twang of string! i am wont to

come back this way more laden than i went. i have carried all

that i had into france in a wallet, and it hath taken four

sumpter-mules to carry it back again. god's benison on the man

who first turned his hand to the making of war! but there, down

in the dingle, is the church of cardillac, and you may see the

inn where three poplars grow beyond the village. let us on, for a

stoup of wine would hearten us upon our way."

the highway had lain through the swelling vineyard country, which

stretched away to the north and east in gentle curves, with many

a peeping spire and feudal tower, and cluster of village houses,

all clear cut and hard in the bright wintry air. to their right

stretched the blue garonne, running swiftly seawards, with boats

and barges dotted over its broad bosom. on the