little moulinet will do all for me, and better than I can do it for myself?'
'I have seen good shooting with the prod and with the latch,' said Aylward, 'but, by my hilt! camarade, with all respect to you and to your bow, I think that is but a woman's weapon, which a woman can point and loose as easily as a man.'
'I know not about that,' answered the Brabanter, 'but this I know, that though I have served for fourteen years, I have never yet seen an Englishman do aught with the long-bow which I could not do better with my arbalest. By the three kings! I would even go further, and say that I have done things with my arbalest which no Englishman could do with his long-bow.'
'Well said, mon gar,' cried Aylward. 'A good cock has ever a brave call. Now, I have shot little of late, but there is Johnston here who will try a round with you for the honour of the Company.'
'And I will lay a gallon of Jurançon wine upon the long-bow,' said Black Simon, 'though I had rather, for my own drinking, that it were a quart of Twynham ale.'
'I take both your challenge and your wager,' said the man of Brabant, throwing off his jacket, and glancing keenly about him with his black twinkling eyes. 'I cannot see any fitting mark, for I care not to waste a bolt on these shields, which a drunken boor could not miss at a village kermesse.'
'This is a perilous man,' whispered an English man-at-arms, plucking at Aylward's sleeve. 'He is the best marksman of all the crossbow companies, and it was he who brought down the Constable de Bourbon at Brignais. I fear that your man will come by little honour with him.'
'Yet I have seen Johnston shoot this twenty years, and I will not flinch from it. How say you, old war-hound, will you not have a flight shot or two with this springald?'
'Tut, tut, Aylward,' said the old bowman. 'My day is past, and it is for the younger ones to hold what we have
