Alleyne could see the smoke of their forges reeking up in the clear morning air.

The storm had died down now to a gentle breeze, which wafted to his ears the long-drawn stirring bugle-calls which sounded from the ancient ramparts.
"Hola, mon petit!" said Aylward, coming up to where he stood.

"Thou art a squire now, and like enough to win the golden spurs, while I am still the master-bowman, and master-bowman I shall bide.

I dare scarce wag my tongue so freely with you as when we tramped together past Wilverley Chase, else I might be your guide now, for indeed I know every house in Bordeaux as a friar knows the beads on his rosary." "Nay, Aylward," said Alleyne, laying his hand upon the sleeve of his companion's frayed jerkin, "you cannot think me so thrall as to throw aside an old friend because I have had some small share of good fortune.
I take it unkind that you should have thought such evil of me." "Nay, mon gar.

'Twas but a flight shot to see if the wind blew steady, though I were a rogue to doubt it." "Why, had I not met you, Aylward, at the Lynhurst inn, who can say where I had now been! Certes, I had not gone to Twynham Castle, nor become squire to Sir Nigel, nor met----" He paused abruptly and flushed to his hair, but the bowman was too busy with his own thoughts to notice his young companion's embarrassment.
"It was a good hostel, that of the 'Pied Merlin,'" he remarked.