"By the rood!" said King Edward, leaning back, with a chicken bone
held daintily between the courtesy fingers of his left hand, "the
play is too good for this country stage. You must to Windsor with
me, Nigel, and bring with you this great suit of harness in which
you lurk. There you shall hold the lists with your eyes in your
midriff, and unless some one cleave you to the waist I see not how
any harm can befall you. Never have I seen so small a nut in so
great a shell."
The Prince, looking back with laughing eyes, saw by Nigel's
flushed and embarrassed face that his poverty hung heavily upon
him. "Nay," said he kindly, "such a workman is surely worthy of
better tools."
"And it is for his master to see that he has them," added the
King. "The court armorer will look to it that the next time your
helmet is carried away, Nigel, your head shall be inside it."
Nigel, red to the roots of his flaxen hair, stammered out some
words of thanks.
John Chandos, however, had a fresh suggestion, and he cocked a
roguish eye as he made it: "Surely, my liege, your bounty is
little needed in this case. It is the ancient law of arms that if
two cavaliers start to joust, and one either by maladdress or
misadventure fail to meet the shock, then his arms become the
property of him who still holds the lists. This being so,
methinks, Sir Hubert de Burgh, that the fine hauberk of Milan and
the helmet of Bordeaux steel in which you rode to Tilford should
remain with our young host as some small remembrance of your
visit.
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