第 六 章 · HOW SAMKIN AYLWARD WAGERED HIS FEATHER-BED.

. HOW SAMKIN AYLWARD WAGERED HIS FEATHER-BED.

He was a middle-sized man, of most massive and robust build, with an

arching chest and extraordinary breadth of shoulder. His shaven face was

as brown as a hazel-nut, tanned and dried by the weather, with harsh,

well-marked features, which were not improved by a long white scar which

stretched from the corner of his left nostril to the angle of the jaw.

His eyes were bright and searching, with something of menace and of

authority in their quick glitter, and his mouth was firm-set and hard,

as befitted one who was wont to set his face against danger. A straight

sword by his side and a painted long-bow jutting over his shoulder

proclaimed his profession, while his scarred brigandine of chain-mail

and his dinted steel cap showed that he was no holiday soldier, but one

who was even now fresh from the wars. A white surcoat with the lion

of St. George in red upon the centre covered his broad breast, while a

sprig of new-plucked broom at the side of his head-gear gave a touch of

gayety and grace to his grim, war-worn equipment.

“Ha!” he cried, blinking like an owl in the sudden glare. “Good even

to you, comrades! Hola! a woman, by my soul!” and in an instant he had

clipped Dame Eliza round the waist and was kissing her violently. His

eye happening to wander upon the maid, however, he instantly abandoned

the mistress and danced off after the other, who scurried in confusion

up one of the ladders, and dropped the heavy trap-door upon her pursuer.

He then turned back and saluted the landlady once more with the utmost

relish and satisfaction.

“La petite is frightened,” said he. “Ah, c'est l'amour, l'amour! Curse

this trick of French, which will stick to my throat. I must wash it out

with some good English ale. By my hilt! camarades, there is no drop of

French blood in my body, and I am a true English bowman, Samkin Aylward

by name; and I tell you, mes amis, that it warms my very heart-roots to

set my feet on the dear old land once more. When I came off the galley

at Hythe, this very day, I down on my bones, and I kissed the good brown

earth, as I kiss thee now, ma belle, for it was eight long years since

I had seen it. The very smell of it seemed life to me. But where are my

six rascals? Hola, there! En avant!”

At the order, six men, dressed as common drudges, marched solemnly

into the room, each bearing a huge bundle upon his head. They formed in

military line, while the soldier stood in front of them with stern eyes,

checking off their several packages.

“Number one--a French feather-bed with the two counter-panes of white

sendall,” said he.

“Here, worthy sir,” answered the first of the bearers, laying a great

package down in the corner.

“Number two--seven ells of red Turkey cloth and nine ells of cloth of

gold. Put it down by the other. Good dame, I prythee give each of these

men a bottrine of wine or a jack of ale. Three--a full piece of white

Genoan velvet with twelve ells of purple silk. Thou rascal, there is

dirt on the hem! Thou hast brushed it against some wall, coquin!”

“Not I, most worthy sir,” cried the carrier, shrinking away from the

fierce eyes of the bowman.

“I say yes, dog! By the three kings! I have seen a man gasp out his last

breath for less. Had you gone through the pain and unease that I have

done to earn these things you would be at more care. I swear by my ten

finger-bones that there is not one of them that hath not cost its weight

in French blood! Four--an incense-boat, a ewer of silver, a gold buckle

and a cope worked in pearls. I found them, camarades, at the Church of

St. Denis in the harrying of Narbonne, and I took them away with me lest

they fall into the hands of the wicked. Five--a cloak of fur turned

up with minever, a gold goblet with stand and cover, and a box of

rose-colored sugar. See that you lay them together. Six--a box of

monies, three pounds of Limousine gold-work, a pair of boots, silver

tagged, and, lastly, a store of naping linen. So, the tally is complete!

Here is a groat apiece, and you may go.”

“Go whither, worthy sir?” asked one of the carriers.

“Whither? To the devil if ye will. What is it to me? Now, ma belle, to

supper. A pair of cold capons, a mortress of brawn, or what you will,

with a flask or two of the right Gascony. I have crowns in my pouch,

my sweet, and I mean to spend them. Bring in wine while the food is

dressing. Buvons my brave lads; you shall each empty a stoup with me.”

Here was an offer which the company in an English inn at that or any

other date are slow to refuse. The flagons were re-gathered and came

back with the white foam dripping over their edges. Two of the woodmen

and three of the laborers drank their portions off hurriedly and trooped

off together, for their homes were distant and the hour late. The

others, however, drew closer, leaving the place of honor to the right

of the gleeman to the free-handed new-comer. He had thrown off his steel

cap and his brigandine, and had placed them with his sword, his quiver

and his painted long-bow, on the top of his varied heap of plunder in

the corner. Now, with his thick and somewhat bowed legs stretched in

front of the blaze, his green jerkin thrown open, and a great quart

pot held in his corded fist, he looked the picture of comfort and of

good-fellowship. His hard-set face had softened, and the thick crop of

crisp brown curls which had been hidden by his helmet grew low upon his

massive neck. He might have been forty years of age, though hard toil

and harder pleasure had left their grim marks upon his features. Alleyne

had ceased painting his pied merlin, and sat, brush in hand, staring

with open eyes at a type of man so strange and so unlike any whom he had

met. Men had been good or had been bad in his catalogue, but here was a

man who was fierce one instant and gentle the next, with a curse on his

lips and a smile in his eye. What was to be made of such a man as that?

It chanced that the soldier looked up and saw the questioning glance

which the young clerk threw upon him. He raised his flagon and drank to

him, with a merry flash of his white teeth.

“A toi, mon garcon,” he cried. “Hast surely never seen a man-at-arms,

that thou shouldst stare so?”

“I never have,” said Alleyne frankly, “though I have oft heard talk of

their deeds.”

“By my hilt!” cried the other, “if you were to cross the narrow sea you

would find them as thick as bees at a tee-hole. Couldst not shoot a

bolt down any street of Bordeaux, I warrant, but you would pink archer,

squire, or knight. There are more breastplates than gaberdines to be

seen, I promise you.”

“And where got you all these pretty things?” asked Hordle John, pointing

at the heap in the corner.

“Where there is as much more waiting for any brave lad to pick it up.

Where a good man can always earn a good wage, and where he need look

upon no man as his paymaster, but just reach his hand out and help

himself. Aye, it is a goodly and a proper life. And here I drink to

mine old comrades, and the saints be with them! Arouse all together,

mes enfants, under pain of my displeasure. To Sir Claude Latour and the

White Company!”

“Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!” shouted the travellers,

draining off their goblets.

“Well quaffed, mes braves! It is for me to fill your cups again, since

you have drained them to my dear lads of the white jerkin. Hola! mon

ange, bring wine and ale. How runs the old stave?--

We'll drink all together

To the gray goose feather

And the land where the gray goose flew.”

He roared out the catch in a harsh, unmusical voice, and ended with a

shout of laughter. “I trust that I am a better bowman than a minstrel,”

said he.

“Methinks I have some remembrance of the lilt,” remarked the gleeman,

running his fingers over the strings. “Hoping that it will give thee no

offence, most holy sir”--with a vicious snap at Alleyne--“and with the

kind permit of the company, I will even venture upon it.”

Many a time in the after days Alleyne Edricson seemed to see that scene,

for all that so many which were stranger and more stirring were soon

to crowd upon him. The fat, red-faced gleeman, the listening group, the

archer with upraised finger beating in time to the music, and the huge

sprawling figure of Hordle John, all thrown into red light and black

shadow by the flickering fire in the centre--memory was to come often

lovingly back to it. At the time he was lost in admiration at the deft

way in which the jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings,

and the lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad

of the outland bowmen, which ran in some such fashion as this:

What of the bow?

The bow was made in England:

Of true wood, of yew wood,

The wood of English bows;

So men who are free

Love the old yew tree

And the land where the yew tree grows.

What of the cord?

The cord was made in England:

A rough cord, a tough cord,

A cord that bowmen love;

So we'll drain our jacks

To the English flax

And the land where the hemp was wove.

What of the shaft?

The shaft was cut in England:

A long shaft, a strong shaft,

Barbed and trim and true;

So we'll drink all together

To the gray goose feather

And the land where the gray goose flew.

What of the men?

The men were bred in England:

The bowman--the yeoman--

The lads of dale and fell

Here's to you--and to you;

To the hearts that are true

And the land where the true hearts dwell.

“Well sung, by my hilt!” shouted the archer in high delight. “Many a

night have I heard that song, both in the old war-time and after in the

days of the White Company, when Black Simon of Norwich would lead the

stave, and four hundred of the best bowmen that ever drew string would

come roaring in upon the chorus. I have seen old John Hawkwood, the same

who has led half the Company into Italy, stand laughing in his beard as

he heard it, until his plates rattled again. But to get the full smack

of it ye must yourselves be English bowmen, and be far off upon an

outland soil.”

Whilst the song had been singing Dame Eliza and the maid had placed a

board across two trestles, and had laid upon it the knife, the spoon,

the salt, the tranchoir of bread, and finally the smoking dish which

held the savory supper. The archer settled himself to it like one who

had known what it was to find good food scarce; but his tongue still

went as merrily as his teeth.

“It passes me,” he cried, “how all you lusty fellows can bide scratching

your backs at home when there are such doings over the seas. Look at

me--what have I to do? It is but the eye to the cord, the cord to the

shaft, and the shaft to the mark. There is the whole song of it. It is

but what you do yourselves for pleasure upon a Sunday evening at the

parish village butts.”

“And the wage?” asked a laborer.

“You see what the wage brings,” he answered. “I eat of the best, and I

drink deep. I treat my friend, and I ask no friend to treat me. I clap

a silk gown on my girl's back. Never a knight's lady shall be better

betrimmed and betrinketed. How of all that, mon garcon? And how of the

heap of trifles that you can see for yourselves in yonder corner? They

are from the South French, every one, upon whom I have been making

war. By my hilt! camarades, I think that I may let my plunder speak for

itself.”

“It seems indeed to be a goodly service,” said the tooth-drawer.

“Tete bleu! yes, indeed. Then there is the chance of a ransom. Why, look

you, in the affair at Brignais some four years back, when the companies

slew James of Bourbon, and put his army to the sword, there was scarce a

man of ours who had not count, baron, or knight. Peter Karsdale, who

was but a common country lout newly brought over, with the English fleas

still hopping under his doublet, laid his great hands upon the Sieur

Amaury de Chatonville, who owns half Picardy, and had five thousand

crowns out of him, with his horse and harness. 'Tis true that a French

wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it; but what

then? By the twang of string! it would be a bad thing if money was not

made to be spent; and how better than on woman--eh, ma belle?”

“It would indeed be a bad thing if we had not our brave archers to bring

wealth and kindly customs into the country,” quoth Dame Eliza, on whom

the soldier's free and open ways had made a deep impression.

“A toi, ma cherie!” said he, with his hand over his heart. “Hola! there

is la petite peeping from behind the door. A toi, aussi, ma petite! Mon

Dieu! but the lass has a good color!”

“There is one thing, fair sir,” said the Cambridge student in his

piping voice, “which I would fain that you would make more clear. As

I understand it, there was peace made at the town of Bretigny some six

years back between our most gracious monarch and the King of the French.

This being so, it seems most passing strange that you should talk so

loudly of war and of companies when there is no quarrel between the

French and us.”

“Meaning that I lie,” said the archer, laying down his knife.

“May heaven forfend!” cried the student hastily. “_Magna est veritas sed

rara_, which means in the Latin tongue that archers are all honorable

men. I come to you seeking knowledge, for it is my trade to learn.”

“I fear that you are yet a 'prentice to that trade,” quoth the soldier;

“for there is no child over the water but could answer what you ask.

Know then that though there may be peace between our own provinces and

the French, yet within the marches of France there is always war, for

the country is much divided against itself, and is furthermore harried

by bands of flayers, skinners, Brabacons, tardvenus, and the rest of

them. When every man's grip is on his neighbor's throat, and every

five-sous-piece of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom

he will, it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys

could not pick up a living. Now that Sir John Hawkwood hath gone with

the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham woodmen into the service of the

Marquis of Montferrat to fight against the Lord of Milan, there are but

ten score of us left, yet I trust that I may be able to bring some back

with me to fill the ranks of the White Company. By the tooth of Peter!

it would be a bad thing if I could not muster many a Hamptonshire man

who would be ready to strike in under the red flag of St. George, and

the more so if Sir Nigel Loring, of Christchurch, should don hauberk

once more and take the lead of us.”

“Ah, you would indeed be in luck then,” quoth a woodman; “for it is said

that, setting aside the prince, and mayhap good old Sir John Chandos,

there was not in the whole army a man of such tried courage.”

“It is sooth, every word of it,” the archer answered. “I have seen him

with these two eyes in a stricken field, and never did man carry himself

better. Mon Dieu! yes, ye would not credit it to look at him, or to

hearken to his soft voice, but from the sailing from Orwell down to

the foray to Paris, and that is clear twenty years, there was not a

skirmish, onfall, sally, bushment, escalado or battle, but Sir Nigel was

in the heart of it. I go now to Christchurch with a letter to him from

Sir Claude Latour to ask him if he will take the place of Sir John

Hawkwood; and there is the more chance that he will if I bring one or

two likely men at my heels. What say you, woodman: wilt leave the bucks

to loose a shaft at a nobler mark?”

The forester shook his head. “I have wife and child at Emery Down,”

quoth he; “I would not leave them for such a venture.”

“You, then, young sir?” asked the archer.

“Nay, I am a man of peace,” said Alleyne Edricson. “Besides, I have

other work to do.”

“Peste!” growled the soldier, striking his flagon on the board until the

dishes danced again. “What, in the name of the devil, hath come over

the folk? Why sit ye all moping by the fireside, like crows round a dead

horse, when there is man's work to be done within a few short leagues of

ye? Out upon you all, as a set of laggards and hang-backs! By my hilt I

believe that the men of England are all in France already, and that what

is left behind are in sooth the women dressed up in their paltocks and

hosen.”

“Archer,” quoth Hordle John, “you have lied more than once and more than

twice; for which, and also because I see much in you to dislike, I am

sorely tempted to lay you upon your back.”

“By my hilt! then, I have found a man at last!” shouted the bowman.

“And, 'fore God, you are a better man than I take you for if you can lay

me on my back, mon garcon. I have won the ram more times than there are

toes to my feet, and for seven long years I have found no man in the

Company who could make my jerkin dusty.”

“We have had enough bobance and boasting,” said Hordle John, rising and

throwing off his doublet. “I will show you that there are better men

left in England than ever went thieving to France.”

“Pasques Dieu!” cried the archer, loosening his jerkin, and eyeing his

foeman over with the keen glance of one who is a judge of manhood.

“I have only once before seen such a body of a man. By your leave, my

red-headed friend, I should be right sorry to exchange buffets with

you; and I will allow that there is no man in the Company who would

pull against you on a rope; so let that be a salve to your pride. On

the other hand I should judge that you have led a life of ease for some

months back, and that my muscle is harder than your own. I am ready to

wager upon myself against you if you are not afeard.”

“Afeard, thou lurden!” growled big John. “I never saw the face yet of

the man that I was afeard of. Come out, and we shall see who is the

better man.”

“But the wager?”

“I have nought to wager. Come out for the love and the lust of the

thing.”

“Nought to wager!” cried the soldier. “Why, you have that which I covet

above all things. It is that big body of thine that I am after. See,

now, mon garcon. I have a French feather-bed there, which I have been at

pains to keep these years back. I had it at the sacking of Issodun, and

the King himself hath not such a bed. If you throw me, it is thine; but,

if I throw you, then you are under a vow to take bow and bill and hie

with me to France, there to serve in the White Company as long as we be

enrolled.”

“A fair wager!” cried all the travellers, moving back their benches and

trestles, so as to give fair field for the wrestlers.

“Then you may bid farewell to your bed, soldier,” said Hordle John.

“Nay; I shall keep the bed, and I shall have you to France in spite

of your teeth, and you shall live to thank me for it. How shall it be,

then, mon enfant? Collar and elbow, or close-lock, or catch how you

can?”

“To the devil with your tricks,” said John, opening and shutting his

great red hands. “Stand forth, and let me clip thee.”

“Shalt clip me as best you can then,” quoth the archer, moving out into

the open space, and keeping a most wary eye upon his opponent. He had

thrown off his green jerkin, and his chest was covered only by a pink

silk jupon, or undershirt, cut low in the neck and sleeveless. Hordle

John was stripped from his waist upwards, and his huge body, with his

great muscles swelling out like the gnarled roots of an oak, towered

high above the soldier. The other, however, though near a foot shorter,

was a man of great strength; and there was a gloss upon his white skin

which was wanting in the heavier limbs of the renegade monk. He was

quick on his feet, too, and skilled at the game; so that it was clear,

from the poise of head and shine of eye, that he counted the chances to

be in his favor. It would have been hard that night, through the whole

length of England, to set up a finer pair in face of each other.

Big John stood waiting in the centre with a sullen, menacing eye, and

his red hair in a bristle, while the archer paced lightly and swiftly to

the right and the left with crooked knee and hands advanced. Then with a

sudden dash, so swift and fierce that the eye could scarce follow it, he

flew in upon his man and locked his leg round him. It was a grip that,

between men of equal strength, would mean a fall; but Hordle John tore

him off from him as he might a rat, and hurled him across the room, so

that his head cracked up against the wooden wall.

“Ma foi!” cried the bowman, passing his fingers through his curls, “you

were not far from the feather-bed then, mon gar. A little more and this

good hostel would have a new window.”

Nothing daunted, he approached his man once more, but this time with

more caution than before. With a quick feint he threw the other off his

guard, and then, bounding upon him, threw his legs round his waist and

his arms round his bull-neck, in the hope of bearing him to the ground

with the sudden shock. With a bellow of rage, Hordle John squeezed him

limp in his huge arms; and then, picking him up, cast him down upon the

floor with a force which might well have splintered a bone or two,

had not the archer with the most perfect coolness clung to the other's

forearms to break his fall. As it was, he dropped upon his feet and

kept his balance, though it sent a jar through his frame which set every

joint a-creaking. He bounded back from his perilous foeman; but the

other, heated by the bout, rushed madly after him, and so gave the

practised wrestler the very vantage for which he had planned. As big

John flung himself upon him, the archer ducked under the great red hands

that clutched for him, and, catching his man round the thighs, hurled

him over his shoulder--helped as much by his own mad rush as by the

trained strength of the heave. To Alleyne's eye, it was as if John had

taken unto himself wings and flown. As he hurtled through the air, with

giant limbs revolving, the lad's heart was in his mouth; for surely no

man ever yet had such a fall and came scathless out of it. In truth,

hardy as the man was, his neck had been assuredly broken had he not

pitched head first on the very midriff of the drunken artist, who was

slumbering so peacefully in the corner, all unaware of these stirring

doings. The luckless limner, thus suddenly brought out from his dreams,

sat up with a piercing yell, while Hordle John bounded back into the

circle almost as rapidly as he had left it.

“One more fall, by all the saints!” he cried, throwing out his arms.

“Not I,” quoth the archer, pulling on his clothes, “I have come well out

of the business. I would sooner wrestle with the great bear of Navarre.”

“It was a trick,” cried John.

“Aye was it. By my ten finger-bones! it is a trick that will add a

proper man to the ranks of the Company.”

“Oh, for that,” said the other, “I count it not a fly; for I had

promised myself a good hour ago that I should go with thee, since the

life seems to be a goodly and proper one. Yet I would fain have had the

feather-bed.”

“I doubt it not, mon ami,” quoth the archer, going back to his tankard.

“Here is to thee, lad, and may we be good comrades to each other! But,

hola! what is it that ails our friend of the wrathful face?”

The unfortunate limner had been sitting up rubbing himself ruefully

and staring about with a vacant gaze, which showed that he knew neither

where he was nor what had occurred to him. Suddenly, however, a flash

of intelligence had come over his sodden features, and he rose and

staggered for the door. “'Ware the ale!” he said in a hoarse whisper,

shaking a warning finger at the company. “Oh, holy Virgin, 'ware the

ale!” and slapping his hands to his injury, he flitted off into the

darkness, amid a shout of laughter, in which the vanquished joined as

merrily as the victor. The remaining forester and the two laborers

were also ready for the road, and the rest of the company turned to the

blankets which Dame Eliza and the maid had laid out for them upon the

floor. Alleyne, weary with the unwonted excitements of the day, was soon

in a deep slumber broken only by fleeting visions of twittering legs,

cursing beggars, black robbers, and the many strange folk whom he had

met at the “Pied Merlin.”