Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/229

Rh Woodhouses, with the annulets of the Musgraves of Westmoreland. By Saint Paul! it would be a very strange thing if so noble a company were to gather without some notable deed of arms arising from it. And here is our boat, Sir Oliver, so it seems best to me that we should go to the abbey with our squires, leaving Master Hawtayne to have his own way in the unloading.

The horses both of knights and squires were speedily lowered into a broad lighter, and reached the shore almost as soon as their masters. Sir Nigel bent his knee devoutly as he put foot on land, and taking a small black patch from his bosom he bound it tightly over his left eye.

'May the blessed George and the memory of my sweet lady-love raise high in my heart!' quoth he. 'And as a token I vow that I will not take this patch from mine eye until I have seen something of this country of Spain, and done such a small deed as it lies in me to do. And this I swear upon the cross of my sword and upon the glove of my lady.'

'In truth, you take me back twenty years, Nigel,' quoth Sir Oliver, as they mounted and rode slowly through the water-gate. 'After Cadsand, I deem that the French thought that we were an army of the blind, for there was scarce a man who had not closed an eye for the greater love and honour of his lady. Yet it goes hard with you that you should darken one side, when with both open you can scarce tell a horse from a mule. In truth, friend, I think that you step over the line of reason in this matter.'

'Sir Oliver Buttesthorn,' said the little knight shortly, 'I would have you to understand that, blind as I am, I can yet see the path of honour very clearly, and that that is a road upon which I do not crave another man's guidance.'

'By my soul,' said Sir Oliver, 'you are as tart as verjuice this morning! If you are bent upon a quarrel with me I must leave you to your humour and drop into the "Tête d'Or" here, for I marked a varlet pass the door who bare a smoking dish, which had, methought, a most excellent smell.'

'Nenny, nenny,' cried his comrade, laying his hand upon