The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle (top rated books of all time txt) 📖

the bird whirled aloft in a last convulsive flutter before falling wounded and flapping to the earth. A roar of applause burst from the crossbowmen; but at the instant that the bolt struck its mark old Johnston, who had stood listlessly with arrow on string, bent his bow and sped a shaft through the body of the falcon. Whipping the other from his belt, he sent it skimming some few feet from the earth with so true an aim that it struck and transfixed the stork for the second time ere it could reach the ground. A deep-chested shout of delight burst from the archers at the sight of this double feat, and Aylward, dancing with joy, threw his arms round the old marksman and embraced him with such vigor that their mail tunics clanged again.

“Ah! camarade,” he cried, “you shall have a stoup with me for this! What then, old dog, would not the hawk please thee, but thou must have the stork as well. Oh, to my heart again!”

“It is a pretty piece of yew, and well strung,” said Johnston with a twinkle in his deep-set gray eyes. “Even an old broken bowman might find the clout with a bow like this.”

“You have done very well,” remarked the Brabanter in a surly voice. “But it seems to me that you have not yet shown yourself to be a better marksman than I, for I have struck that at which I aimed, and, by the three kings! no man can do more.”

“It would ill beseem me to claim to be a better marksman,” answered Johnston, “for I have heard great things of your skill. I did but wish to show that the long-bow could do that which an arbalest could not do, for you could not with your moulinet have your string ready to speed another shaft ere the bird drop to the earth.”

“In that you have vantage,” said the crossbowman. “By Saint James! it is now my turn to show you where my weapon has the better of you. I pray you to draw a flight shaft with all your strength down the valley, that we may see the length of your shoot.”

“That is a very strong prod of yours,” said Johnston, shaking his grizzled head as he glanced at the thick arch and powerful strings of his rival’s arbalest. “I have little doubt that you can overshoot me, and yet I have seen bowmen who could send a cloth-yard arrow further than you could speed a quarrel.”

“So I have heard,” remarked the Brabanter; “and yet it is a strange thing that these wondrous bowmen are never where I chance to be. Pace out the distances with a wand at every five score, and do you, Arnaud, stand at the fifth wand to carry back my bolts to me.”

A line was measured down the valley, and Johnston, drawing an arrow to the very head, sent it whistling over the row of wands.

“Bravely drawn! A rare shoot!” shouted the bystanders.

“It is well up to the fourth mark.”

“By my hilt! it is over it,” cried Aylward. “I can see where they have stooped to gather up the shaft.”

“We shall hear anon,” said Johnston quietly, and presently a young archer came running to say that the arrow had fallen twenty paces beyond the fourth wand.

“Four hundred paces and a score,” cried Black Simon. “I’ faith, it is a very long flight. Yet wood and steel may do more than flesh and blood.”

The Brabanter stepped forward with a smile of conscious triumph, and loosed the cord of his weapon. A shout burst from his comrades as they watched the swift and lofty flight of the heavy bolt.

“Over the fourth!” groaned Aylward. “By my hilt! I think that it is well up to the fifth.”

“It is over the fifth!” cried a Gascon loudly, and a comrade came running with waving arms to say that the bolt had pitched eight paces beyond the mark of the five hundred.

“Which weapon hath the vantage now?” cried the Brabanter, Strutting proudly about with shouldered arbalest, amid the applause of his companions.

“You can overshoot me,” said Johnston gently.

“Or any other man who ever bent a long-bow,” cried his victorious adversary.

“Nay, not so fast,” said a huge archer, whose mighty shoulders and red head towered high above the throng of his comrades. “I must have a word with you ere you crow so loudly. Where is my little popper? By sainted Dick of Hampole! it will be a strange thing if I cannot outshoot that thing of thine, which to my eyes is more like a rat-trap than a bow. Will you try another flight, or do you stand by your last?”

“Five hundred and eight paces will serve my turn,” answered the Brabanter, looking askance at this new opponent.

“Tut, John,” whispered Aylward, “you never were a marksman. Why must you thrust your spoon into this dish?”

“Easy and slow, Aylward. There are very many things which I cannot do, but there are also one or two which I have the trick of. It is in my mind that I can beat this shoot, if my bow will but hold together.”

“Go on, old babe of the woods!” “Have at it, Hampshire!” cried the archers laughing.

“By my soul! you may grin,” cried John. “But I learned how to make the long shoot from old Hob Miller of Milford.” He took up a great black bow, as he spoke, and sitting down upon the ground he placed his two feet on either end of the stave. With an arrow fitted, he then pulled the string towards him with both hands until the head of the shaft was level with the wood. The great bow creaked and groaned and the cord vibrated with the tension.

“Who is this fool’s-head who stands in the way of my shoot?” said he, craning up his neck from the ground.

“He stands on the further side of my mark,” answered the Brabanter, “so he has little to fear from you.”

“Well, the saints assoil him!” cried John. “Though I think he is over-near to be scathed.” As he spoke he raised his two feet, with the bowstave upon their soles, and his cord twanged with a deep rich hum which might be heard across the valley. The measurer in the distance fell flat upon his face, and then jumping up again, he began to run in the opposite direction.

“Well shot, old lad! It is indeed over his head,” cried the bowmen.

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the Brabanter, “who ever saw such a shoot?”

“It is but a trick,” quoth John. “Many a time have I won a gallon of ale by covering a mile in three flights down Wilverley Chase.”

“It fell a hundred and thirty paces beyond the fifth mark,” shouted an archer in the distance.

“Six hundred and thirty paces! Mon Dieu! but that is a shoot! And yet it says nothing for your weapon, mon gros camarade, for it was by turning yourself into a crossbow that you did it.”

“By my hilt! there is truth in that,” cried Aylward. “And now, friend, I will myself show you a vantage of the long-bow. I pray you to speed a bolt against yonder shield with all your force. It is an inch of elm with bull’s hide over it.”

“I scarce shot as many shafts at Brignais,” growled the man of Brabant; “though I found a better mark there than a cantle of bull’s hide. But what is this, Englishman? The shield hangs not one hundred paces from me, and a blind man could strike it.” He screwed up his string to the furthest pitch, and shot his quarrel at the dangling shield. Aylward, who had drawn an arrow from his quiver, carefully greased the head of it, and sped it at the same mark.

“Run, Wilkins,” quoth he, “and fetch me the shield.”

Long were the faces of the Englishmen and broad the laugh of the crossbowmen as the heavy mantlet was carried towards them, for there in the centre was the thick Brabant bolt driven deeply into the wood, while there was neither sign nor trace of the cloth-yard shaft.

“By the three kings!” cried the Brabanter, “this time at least there is no gainsaying which is the better weapon, or which the truer hand that held it. You have missed the shield, Englishman.”

“Tarry a bit! tarry a bit, mon gar.!” quoth Aylward, and turning round the shield he showed a round clear hole in the wood at the back of it. “My shaft has passed through it, camarade, and I trow the one which goes through is more to be feared than that which bides on the way.”

The Brabanter stamped his foot with mortification, and was about to make some angry reply, when Alleyne Edricson came riding up to the crowds of archers.

“Sir Nigel will be here anon,” said he, “and it is his wish to speak with the Company.”

In an instant order and method took the place of general confusion. Bows, steel caps, and jacks were caught up from the grass. A long cordon cleared the camp of all strangers, while the main body fell into four lines with under-officers and file-leaders in front and on either flank. So they stood, silent and motionless, when their leader came riding towards them, his face shining and his whole small figure swelling with the news which he bore.

“Great honor has been done to us, men,” cried he: “for, of all the army, the prince has chosen us out that we should ride onwards into the lands of Spain to spy upon our enemies. Yet, as there are many of us, and as the service may not be to the liking of all, I pray that those will step forward from the ranks who have the will to follow me.”

There was a rustle among the bowmen, but when Sir Nigel looked up at them no man stood forward from his fellows, but the four lines of men stretched unbroken as before. Sir Nigel blinked at them in amazement, and a look of the deepest sorrow shadowed his face.

“That I should live to see the day!” he cried, “What! not one–-”

“My fair lord,” whispered Alleyne, “they have all stepped forward.”

“Ah, by Saint Paul! I see how it is with them. I could not think that they would desert me. We start at dawn to-morrow, and ye are to have the horses of Sir Robert Cheney’s company. Be ready, I pray ye, at early cock-crow.”

A buzz of delight burst from the archers, as they broke their ranks and ran hither and thither, whooping and cheering like boys who have news of a holiday. Sir Nigel gazed after them with a smiling face, when a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder.

“What ho! my knight-errant of Twynham!” said a voice, “You are off to Ebro, I hear; and, by the holy fish of Tobias! you must take me under your banner.”

“What! Sir Oliver Buttesthorn!” cried Sir Nigel. “I had heard that you were come into camp, and had hoped to see you. Glad and proud shall I be to have you with me.”

“I have a most particular and weighty reason for wishing to go,” said the sturdy knight.

“I can well believe it,” returned Sir Nigel; “I have met no man who is quicker to follow where honor leads.”

“Nay, it is not for honor that I go, Nigel.”

“For what then?”

“For pullets.”

“Pullets?”

“Yes, for the rascal vanguard have cleared every hen from the country-side. It was this very morning that Norbury, my squire, lamed his horse in riding round in quest of one, for we have a bag of truffles, and nought to eat with them. Never have