two hands as he spoke, and showed that the thumbs and two first
fingers had been torn away from each of them.

"Ma foi, camarade!" cried Aylward. "Who hath served thee in so shameful
a fashion?"

"It is easy to see, friend, that you were born far from the marches of
Scotland," quoth the stranger, with a bitter smile. "North of Humber
there is no man who would not know the handiwork of Devil Douglas, the
black Lord James."

"And how fell you into his hands?" asked John.

"I am a man of the north country, from the town of Beverley and the
wapentake of Holderness," he answered. "There was a day when, from Trent
to Tweed, there was no better marksman than Robin Heathcot. Yet, as you
see, he hath left me, as he hath left many another poor border archer,
with no grip for bill or bow. Yet the king hath given me a living here
in the southlands, and please God these two lads of mine will pay off
a debt that hath been owing over long. What is the price of daddy's
thumbs, boys?"

"Twenty Scottish lives," they answered together.

"And for the fingers?"

"Half a score."

"When they can bend my war-bow, and bring down a squirrel at a hundred
paces, I send them to take service under Johnny Copeland, the Lord of
the Marches and Governor of Carlisle. By my soul! I would give the rest
of my fingers to see the Douglas within arrow-flight of them."

"May you live to see it," quoth the bowman. "And hark ye, mes enfants,
take an old soldier's rede and lay your bodies to the bow, drawing from
hip and thigh as much as from arm. Learn also, I pray you, to shoot with
a dropping shaft; for though a bowman may at times be called upon to
shoot straight and fast, yet it is more often that he has to do with a
town-guard behind a wall, or an arbalestier with his mantlet raised when
you cannot hope to do him scathe unless your shaft fall straight upon
him from the clouds. I have not drawn string for two weeks, but I may
be able to show ye how such shots should be made." He loosened his
long-bow, slung his quiver round to the front, and then glanced keenly
round for a fitting mark. There was a yellow and withered stump some
way off, seen under the drooping branches of a lofty oak. The archer
measured the distance with his eye; and then, drawing three shafts, he
shot them off with such speed that the first had not reached the mark
ere the last was on the string. Each arrow passed high over the oak;
and, of the three, two stuck fair into the st