loring."
"here's a romsey man for you!" cried a young bowman with a sprig
of evergreen set in his helmet.
"and a lad from alresford!" shouted another.
"and from milton!"
"and from burley!"
"and from lymington!"
"and a little one from brockenhurst!" shouted a huge-limbed
fellow who sprawled beneath a tree.
"by my hilt! lads," cried aylward, jumping upon the fallen trunk,
"i think that we could not look the girls in the eyes if we let
the prince cross the mountains and did not pull string to clear a
path for him. it is very well in time of peace to lead such a
life as we have had together, but now the war-banner is in the
wind once more, and, by these ten finger-bones! if he go alone,
old samkin aylward will walk beside it."
these words from a man as popular as aylward decided many of the
waverers, and a shout of approval burst from his audience.
"far be it from me," said sir claude latour suavely, "to persuade
you against this worthy archer, or against sir nigel loring; yet
we have been together in many ventures, and per-chance it may not
be amiss if i say to you what i think upon the matter."
"peace for the little gascon!" cried the archers. "let every man
have his word. shoot straight for the mark, lad, and fair play
for all."
"bethink you, then," said sir claude, "that you go under a hard
rule, with neither freedom nor pleasure--and for what? for
sixpence a day, at the most; while now you may walk across the
country and stretch out either hand to gather in whatever you
have a mind for. what do we not hear of our comrades who have
gone with sir john hawkwood to italy? in one night they have
held to ransom six hundred of the richest noblemen of mantua.
they camp before a great city, and the base burghers come forth
with the keys, and then they make great spoil; or, if it please
them better, they take so many horse-loads of silver as a
composition; and so they journey on from state to state, rich and
free and feared by all. now, is not that the proper life for a
soldier?"
"the proper life for a robber!" roared hordle john, in his
thundering voice.
"and yet there is much in what the gascon says," said a swarthy
fellow in a weather-stained doublet; "and i for one would rather
prosper in italy than starve in spain."
"you were always a cur and a traitor, mark shaw," cried aylward.
"by my hilt! if you will stand forth and draw your sword i will
warrant you that you will see neither one nor the other."
"nay, aylward," said sir nigel, "we cannot mend the matter by
broiling. sir claude, i think that what you have said does you
little honor, and if my words aggrieve you i am ever ready to go
deeper into the matter with you. but you shall have such men as
will follow you, and you may go where you will, so that you come
not with us. let all who love their prince and country stand
fast, while those who think more of a well-lined purse step forth
upon the farther side."
thirteen bowmen, with hung heads and sheepish faces, stepped
forward with mark shaw and ranged themselves behind sir claude.
amid the hootings and hissings of their comrades, they marched
off together to the gascon's hut, while the main body broke up
their meeting and set cheerily to work packing their possessions,
furbishing their weapons, and preparing for the march which lay
before them. over the tarn and the garonne, through the vast
quagmires of armagnac, past the swift-flowing losse, and so down
the long valley of the adour, there was many a long league to be
crossed ere they could join themselves to that dark war-cloud
which was drifting slowly southwards to the line of the snowy
peaks, beyond which the banner of england had never yet been
seen.
chapter xxxiii.
how the army made the passage of roncesvalles.
the whole vast plain of gascony and of languedoc is an arid and
profitless expanse in winter save where the swift-flowing adour
and her snow-fed tributaries, the louts, the oloron and the pau,
run down to the sea of biscay. south of the adour the jagged
line of mountains which fringe the sky-line send out long granite
claws, running down into the lowlands and dividing them into
"gaves" or stretches of valley. hillocks grow into hills, and
hills into mountains, each range overlying its neighbor, until
they soar up in the giant chain which raises its spotless and
untrodden peaks, white and dazzling, against the pale blue wintry
sky.
a quiet land is this--a land where the slow-moving basque, with
his flat biretta-cap, his red sash and his hempen sandals, tills
his scanty farm or drives his lean flock to their hill-side
pastures. it is the country of the wolf and the isard, of the
brown bear and the mountain-goat, a land of bare rock and of
rushing water. yet here it was that the will of a great prince
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