Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/55

Rh clad in a tunic of purple velvet and driving a great black horse as hard as it could gallop. He leaned well over its neck as he rode, and made a heaving with his shoulders at every bound as though he were lifting the steed instead of it carrying him. In the rapid glance Alleyne saw that he had white doeskin gloves, a curling white feather in his flat velvet cap, and a broad gold-embroidered baldric across his bosom. Behind him rode six others, two and two, clad in sober brown jerkins, with the long yellow staves of their bows thrusting out from behind their right shoulders. Down the hill they thundered, over the brook, and up to the scene of the contest.

'Here is one!' said the leader, springing down from his reeking horse, and seizing the white rogue by the edge of his jerkin. 'This is one of them. I know him by that devil's touch upon his brow. Where are your cords, Peterkin? So! Bind him hand and foot. His last hour has come. And you, young man, who may you be?'

'I am a clerk, sir, travelling from Beaulieu.'

'A clerk!' cried the other. 'Art from Oxenford or from Cambridge? Hast thou a letter from the chancellor of thy college, giving thee a permit to beg? Let me see thy letter.'

He had a stern square face, with bushy side-whiskers and a very questioning eye.

'I am from Beaulieu Abbey, and I have no need to beg,' said Alleyne, who was all of a tremble now that the ruffle was over.

'The better for thee,' the other answered. 'Dost know who I am?'

'No, sir, I do not.'

'I am the law!'—nodding his head solemnly. 'I am the law of England and the mouthpiece of his most gracious and royal majesty, Edward the Third.'

Alleyne louted low to the king's representative.

'Truly you came in good time, honoured sir,' said he. 'A moment later and they would have slain me.'

'But there should be another one,' cried the man in the purple coat. 'There should be a black man. A shipman with