A roar of laughter, like the clap of a wave, swept down
the deck as the luckless bowman danced and wrung his hand.
"Serve thee well right, thou redeless fool!" growled the old
bowyer. "So fine a bow is wasted in such hands. How now, Samkin?
I can teach you little of your trade, I trow. Here is a bow
dressed as it should be; but it would, as you say, be the better
for a white band to mark the true nocking point in the center of
this red wrapping of silk. Leave it and I will tend to it anon.
And you, Wat? A fresh head on yonder stele? Lord, that a man
should carry four trades under one hat, and be bowyer, fletcher,
stringer and headmaker! Four men's work for old Bartholomew and
one man's pay!"
"Nay, say no more about that," growled an old wizened bowman, with
a brown-parchment skin and little beady eyes. "It is better in
these days to mend a bow than to bend one. You who never looked a
Frenchman in the face are pricked off for ninepence a day, and I,
who have fought five stricken fields, can earn but fourpence."
"It is in my mind, John of Tuxford, that you have looked in the
face more pots of mead than Frenchmen," said the old bowyer. "I
am swinking from dawn to night, while you are guzzling in an
alestake. How now, youngster? Overbowed? Put your bow in the
tiller. It draws at sixty pounds--not a pennyweight too much for
a man of your inches.
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