'And next day?'
'By my faith! we did not tarry long, but we hied back to Bordeaux, where we came in safety with the King of France and also the feather-bed. I sold my spoil, mes garçons, for as many gold pieces as I could hold in my hufken, and for seven days I lit twelve wax candles upon the altar of Saint Andrew: for if you forget the blessed when things are well with you, they are very likely to forget you when you have need of them. I have a score of one hundred and nineteen pounds of wax against the holy Andrew, and, as he was a very just man, I doubt not that I shall have full weight and measure when I have most need of it.'
'Tell me, Master Aylward,' cried a young, fresh-faced archer at the further end of the room, 'what was this great battle about?'
'Why, you jack-fool, what would it be about save who should wear the crown of France?'
'I thought that mayhap it might be as to who should have this feather-bed of thine.'
'If I come down to you, Silas, I may lay my belt across your shoulders,' Aylward answered, amid a general shout of laughter. 'But it is time young chickens went to roost when they dare cackle against their elders. It is late, Simon.'
'Nay, let us have another song.'
'Here is Arnold of Sowley will troll as good a stave as any man in the Company.'
'Nay, we have one here who is second to none,' said Hawtayne, laying his hand upon big John's shoulder. 'I have heard him on the cog with a voice like the wave upon the shore. I pray you, friend, to give us "The Bells of Milton," or, if you will, "The Franklin's Maid."'
Hordle John drew the back of his hand across his mouth, fixed his eyes upon the corner of the ceiling, and bellowed forth, in a voice which made the torches flicker, the southland ballad for which he had been asked:—
