"I did but wish to learn the feel of them, since I am like to have such trinkets hung to my own girdle for some years to come." "Ma foi, he was born for a free companion!" cried Aylward, "He hath the very trick of speech and turn of thought.

I take them back then, and indeed it gives me unease not to feel my yew-stave tapping against my leg bone.

But see, mes garcons, on this side of the church rises the square and darkling tower of Earl Salisbury's castle, and even from here I seem to see on yonder banner the red roebuck of the Montacutes." "Red upon white," said Alleyne, shading his eyes; "but whether roebuck or no is more than I could vouch.

How black is the great tower, and how bright the gleam of arms upon the wall! See below the flag, how it twinkles like a star!" "Aye, it is the steel head-piece of the watchman," remarked the archer.
"But we must on, if we are to be there before the drawbridge rises at the vespers bugle; for it is likely that sir Nigel, being so renowned a soldier, may keep hard discipline within the walls, and let no man enter after sundown." So saying, he quickened his pace, and the three comrades were soon close to the straggling and broad-spread town which centered round the noble church and the frowning castle.
It chanced on that very evening that Sir Nigel Loring, having supped before sunset, as was his custom, and having himself seen that Pommers and Cadsand, his two war-horses, with the thirteen hacks, the five jennets, my lady's three palfreys, and the great dapple-gray roussin, had all their needs supplied, had taken his dogs for an evening breather.

Sixty or seventy of them, large and small, smooth and shaggy--deer-hound, boar-hound, blood-hound, wolf-hound, mastiff, alaun, talbot, lurcher, terrier, spaniel--snapping, yelling and whining, with score of lolling tongues and waving tails, came surging down the narrow lane which leads from the Twynham kennels to the bank of Avon.