Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/82

58 for it. How shall it be, then, mon enfant? Collar and elbow, or close-lock, or catch how you can?'

'To the devil with your tricks,' said John, opening and shutting his great red hands. 'Stand forth, and let me clip thee.'

'Shalt clip me as best you can, then,' quoth the archer, moving out into the open space, and keeping a most wary eye upon his opponent. He had thrown off his green jerkin, and his chest was covered only by a pink silk jupon, or undershirt, cut low in the neck and sleeveless. Hordle John was stripped from his waist upwards, and his huge body, with his great muscles swelling out like the gnarled roots of an oak, towered high above the soldier. The other, however, though near a foot shorter, was a man of great strength; and there was a gloss upon his white skin which was wanting in the heavier limbs of the renegade monk. He was quick on his feet, too, and skilled at the game; so that it was clear, from the poise of head and shine of eye, that he counted the chances to be in his favour. It would have been hard that night, through the whole length of England, to set up a finer pair in face of each other.

Big John stood waiting in the centre with a sullen, menacing eye, and his red hair in a bristle, while the archer paced lightly and swiftly to the right and the left with crooked knee and hands advanced. Then, with a sudden dash, so swift and fierce that the eye could scarce follow it, he flew in upon his man and locked his leg round him. It was a grip that, between men of equal strength, would mean a fall; but Hordle John tore him off from him as he might a rat, and hurled him across the room, so that his head cracked up against the wooden wall.

'Ma foi!' cried the bowman, passing his fingers through his curls, 'you were not far from the feather-bed then, mon gar. A little more, and this good hostel would have a new window.'

Nothing daunted, he approached his man once more; but this time with more caution than before. With a quick feint