"
Nigel chafed in impotent anger. "Am I to be shot at like a
popinjay at a fair, by any reaver or outlaw that seeks a mark for
his bow?" he cried. "By Saint Paul! Aylward, I will put on my
harness and go further into the matter. Help me to untruss, I
pray you!"
"Nay, my fair lord, I will not help you to your own downfall. It
is a match with cogged dice betwixt a horseman on the moor and
archers amid the forest. But these men are no outlaws, or they
would not dare to draw their bows within a league of the sheriff
of Guildford."
"Indeed, Aylward, I think that you speak truth," said Nigel. "It
may be that these are the men of Paul de la Fosse of Shalford,
whom I have given little cause to love me. Ah! there is indeed
the very man himself."
They sat their horses with their backs to the long slope which
leads up to the old chapel on the hill. In front of them was the
dark ragged edge of the wood, with a sharp twinkle of steel here
and there in its shadows which spoke of these lurking foes. But
now there was a long moot upon a horn, and at once a score of
russet-clad bowmen ran forward from amid the trees, spreading out
into a scattered line and closing swiftly in upon the travelers.
In the midst of them, upon a great gray horse, sat a small
misshapen man, waving and cheering as one sets hounds on a badger,
turning his head this way and that as he whooped and pointed,
urging his bowmen onward up the slope.
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