'Here are young chips from an old bow-stave!' cried the soldier in great delight. 'This is the proper way to raise children. By my hilt! I could not have trained them better had I the ordering of it myself.'
'What is it, then?' asked Hordle John. 'They stand very stiff, and I trust that they have not been struck so.'
'Nay, they are training their left arms, that they may have a steady grasp of the bow. So my own father trained me, and six days a week I held out his walking-staff till my arm was heavy as lead. Holà, mes enfants! how long will you hold out?'
'Until the sun is over the great lime-tree, good master,' the elder answered.
'What would ye be, then? Woodmen? Verderers?'
'Nay, soldiers,' they cried both together.
'By the beard of my father! but ye are whelps of the true breed. Why so keen, then, to be soldiers?'
'That we may fight the Scots,' they answered. 'Daddy will send us to fight the Scots.'
'And why the Scots, my pretty lads? We have seen French and Spanish galleys no further away than Southampton, but I doubt that it will be some time before the Scots find their way to these parts.'
'Our business is with the Scots,' quoth the elder; 'for it was the Scots who cut off daddy's string fingers and his thumbs.'
'Ay, lads, it was that,' said a deep voice from behind Alleyne's shoulder. Looking round, the wayfarers saw a gaunt, big-boned man, with sunken cheeks and a sallow face, who had come up behind them. He held up his two hands as he spoke, and showed that the thumbs and two first fingers had been torn away from each of them.
'Ma foi, camarade!' cried Aylward. 'Who hath served thee in so shameful a fashion?'
'It is easy to see, friend, that you were born far from the marches of Scotland,' quoth the stranger, with a bitter smile. 'North of Humber there is no man who would not
