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118 which lay by the roadside, deep sunken from its own weight in the reddish earth. The archer approached it, rolling back the sleeves of his jerkin, but with no very hopeful countenance, for indeed it was a mighty rock. John, however, put him aside with his left hand, and, stooping over the stone, he plucked it single-handed from its soft bed and swung it far into the stream. There it fell with mighty splash, one jagged end peaking out above the surface, while the waters bubbled and foamed with far-circling eddy.

'Good lack!' cried Sir Nigel, and 'Good lack!' cried his lady, while John stood laughing and wiping the caked dirt from his fingers.

'I have felt his arms round my ribs,' said the bowman, 'and they crackle yet at the thought of it. This other comrade of mine is a right learned clerk, for all that he is so young, hight Alleyne, the son of Edric, brother to the Socman of Minstead.'

'Young man,' quoth Sir Nigel sternly, 'if you are of the same way of thought as your brother, you may not pass under portcullis of mine.'

'Nay, fair sir,' cried Aylward hastily, 'I will be pledge for it that they have no thought in common; for this very day his brother hath set his dogs upon him, and driven him from his lands.'

'And are you, too, of the White Company?' asked Sir Nigel. 'Hast had small experience of war, if I may judge by your looks and bearing.'

'I would fain to France with my friends here,' Alleyne answered; 'but I am a man of peace—a reader, exorcist, acolyte, and clerk.'

'That need not hinder,' quoth Sir Nigel.

'No, fair sir,' cried the bowman joyously. 'Why, I myself have served two terms with Arnold de Cervolles, he whom they called the archpriest. By my hilt! I have seen him ere now, with monk's gown trussed to his knees, over his sandals in blood in the forefront of the battle. Yet, ere the last string had twanged, he would be down on his