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
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