Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/293

Rh would give my feather-bed to see you at a spear-running. This is a most courtly and gentle sport which you have devised.'

'So it seems to me,' said John seriously. 'Or, again, one might seize the other round the middle, pluck him off his horse and bear him to the pavilion, there to hold him to ransom.'

'Good!' cried Simon, amid a roar of laughter from all the archers round. 'By Thomas of Kent! we shall make a camp-marshal of thee, and thou shalt draw up rules for our jousting. But, John, who is it that you would uphold in this knightly and pleasing fashion?'

'What mean you?'

'Why, John, so strong and strange a tilter must fight for the brightness of his lady's eyes or the curl of her eyelash, even as Sir Nigel does for the Lady Loring.'

'I know not about that,' said the big archer, scratching his head in perplexity. 'Since Mary hath played me false, I can scarce fight for her.'

'Yet any woman will serve.'

'There is my mother, then,' said John. 'She was at much pains at my upbringing, and, by my soul! I will uphold the curve of her eye-lashes, for it tickleth my very heart-root to think of her. But who is here?' 'It is Sir William Beauchamp. He is a valiant man, but I fear that he is scarce firm enough upon the saddle to bear the thrust of such a tilter as this stranger promises to be.'

Aylward's words were speedily justified, for even as he spoke the two knights met in the centre of the lists. Beauchamp struck his opponent a shrewd blow upon the helmet, but was met with so frightful a thrust that he whirled out of his saddle and rolled over and over upon the ground. Sir Thomas Percy met with little better success, for his shield was split, his vambrace torn, and he himself wounded slightly in the side. Lord Audley and the unknown knight struck each other fairly upon the helmet; but