The White Company Chapter 8 - The Three Friends

**Arthur Conan Doyle** (0:22)
CHAPTER VIII THE THREE FRIENDS His companions had passed on while he was at his horizons, but his young blood and the fresh morning air both invited him to a scamper. His staff in one hand and his scrip in the other, with springy step and floating locks, he raced along the forest path, as active and as graceful as a young deer.
He had not far to go, however, for on turning a corner he came on a roadside cottage with a wooden fencework around it, where stood Big John and Aylward the Bowman, staring at something within.
As he came up with them, he saw that two little lads, one about nine years of age and the other somewhat older, were standing on the plot in front of the cottage, each holding out a round stick in their left hands, with their arms stiff and straight from the shoulder, as silent and still as two small statues.
They were pretty, blue-eyed, yellow-haired lads, well made and sturdy, with bronze skins which spoke of woodland life. Here are young chips from an old bow-stave, cried the soldier, in great delight. This is the proper way to raise children. By my hilt I could not have trained them better if I had the ordering of it myself. What is it, then? asked Hortlejohn. They stand very stiff, and I trust they have not been struck so. Nay, they're training their left arms. They may have a steady grasp of the bow. So my own father trained me, and six days a week I held out his walking-staff till my arm was as heavy as lead. Hortlejohn, for? How long will you hold out? Until the sun is over the great lime-tree, good master, the elder answered.
What would you be, then, woodmen, verderers? Nay, soldiers, they cried both together. By the beard of my father, but ye are welts of the true breed. Why so keen, then, to be soldiers? That we may fight the Scots, they answered. Daddy will send us to fight the Scots. And why the Scots, my pretty lads? We have seen French and Spanish galleys no further away than Southampton, but I doubt it will be some time before the Scots find their way to these parts. Our business is with the Scots, quoth the elder. For it was the Scots who cut off Daddy's string fingers and his thumbs. Ay, lads, it was that, said a deep voice from behind Alleyne's shoulder. Looking round, the wayfarers saw a gaunt, big-boned man with sunken cheeks and a sallow face, who had come up behind them.
He held up his two hands as he spoke, and showed that the thumbs and two first fingers had been torn away from each of them. Muff! Wah! Camerad! cried Aylewood. 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's no man who would not know the handiwork of Devil Douglas, the black Lord James. And how fill you into his hands? asked John. I'm a man of the North Country, from the town of Beverley and the whoppin take of Holderness, he answered. There was a day when, from Trent to Tweed, there was no better marksman than Robin Heathcote. 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 has been owing over long. What's 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-harrow flight of them. May you live to see it, quoth the bowman. And hark ye, mes enfants, take an old soldier's reed, 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, it is more often that he has to do with a town guard behind a wall, or an arbalester with his mantlet raised, when you cannot hope to do him scathe unless your shaft falls straight upon him from the clouds. I have not drawn string for two weeks, but I may be able to show you how such shots may be made. He loosed his longbow, 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 one was on the string.