Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/292

262 and bestrode the black charger which his squire had led beside him. His immense breadth, his stern composed appearance, and the mode in which he handled his shield and his lance, were enough in themselves to convince the thousands of critical spectators that he was a dangerous opponent. Aylward, who stood in the front row of the archers with Simon, big John, and others of the Company, had been criticising the proceedings from the commencement with the ease and freedom of a man who had spent his life under arms and had learned in a hard school to know at a glance the points of a horse and his rider. He stared now at the stranger with a wrinkled brow and the air of a man who is striving to stir his memory.

'By my hilt! I have seen the thick body of him before to-day. Yet I cannot call to mind where it could have been. At Nogent belike, or was it at Auray? Mark me, lads, this man will prove to be one of the best lances of France, and there are no better in the world.'

'It is but child's play, this poking game,' said John. 'I would fain try my hand at it, for, by the black rood! I think that it might be amended.'

'What, then, would you do, John?' asked several.

'There are many things which might be done,' said the forester thoughtfully. 'Methinks that I would begin by breaking my spear.'

'So they all strive to do.'

'Nay, but not upon another man's shield. I would break it over my own knee.'

'And what the better for that, old beef and bones?' asked Black Simon.

'So I would turn what is but a lady's bodkin of a weapon into a very handsome club.'

'And then, John?'

'Then I would take the other's spear into my arm or my leg, or where it pleased him best to put it, and I would dash out his brains with my club.'

'By my ten finger-bones! old John,' said Aylward, 'I