"You have done very well," remarked the Brabanter in a surly voice. "But it seems to me that you have not yet shown yourself to be a better marksman than I, for I have struck that at which I aimed, and, by the three kings! no man can do more."
"It would ill beseem me to claim to be a better marksman," answered Johnston, "for I have heard great things of your skill.
I did but wish to show that the long-bow could do that which an arbalest could not do, for you could not with your moulinet have your string ready to speed another shaft ere the bird drop to the earth."
"In that you have vantage," said the crossbowman. "By Saint James! it is now my turn to show you where my weapon has the better of you.
I pray you to draw a flight shaft with all your strength down the valley, that we may see the length of your shoot."
"That is a very strong prod of yours," said Johnston, shaking his grizzled head as he glanced at the thick arch and powerful strings of his rival's arbalest.
"I have little doubt that you can overshoot me, and yet I have seen bowmen who could send a cloth-yard arrow further than you could speed a quarrel."
"So I have heard," remarked the Brabanter; "and yet it is a strange thing that these wondrous bowmen are never where I chance to be.
Pace out the distances with a wand at every five score, and do you, Arnaud, stand at the fifth wand to carry back my bolts to me."
A line was measured down the valley, and Johnston, drawing an arrow to the very head, sent it whistling over the row of wands.
"Bravely drawn!
A rare shoot!" shouted the bystanders.
"It is well up to the fourth mark."
"By my hilt! it is over it," cried Aylward. "I can see where they have stooped to gather up the shaft."
"We shall hear anon," said Johnston quietly, and presently a young archer came running to say that the arrow had fallen twenty paces beyond the fourth wand.
"Four hundred paces and a score," cried Black Simon.
"I' faith, it is a very long flight.
Yet wood and steel may do more than flesh and blood."
The Brabanter stepped forward with a smile of conscious triumph, and loosed the cord of his weapon.
A shout burst from his comrades as they watched the swift and lofty flight of the heavy bolt.
"Over the fourth!" groaned Aylward.
"By my hilt!
I think that it is well up to the fifth."
"It is over the fifth!" cried a Gascon loudly, and a comrade came running with waving arms to say that the bolt had pitched eight paces beyond the mark of the five hundred.
"Which weapon hath the vantage now?" cried the Brabanter, Strutting proudly about with shouldered arbalest, amid the applause of his companions.
"You can overshoot me," said Johnston gently.
"Or any other man who ever bent a long-bow," cried his victorious adversary.
"Nay, not so fast," said a huge archer, whose mighty shoulders and red head towered high above the throng of his comrades.
"I must have a word with you ere you crow so loudly.
Where is my little popper?
By sainted Dick of Hampole! it will be a strange thing if I cannot outshoot that thing of thine, which to my eyes is more like a rat-trap than a bow.
Will you try another flight, or do you stand by your last?"
"Five hundred and eight paces will serve my turn," answered the Brabanter, looking askance at this new opponent.
"Tut, John," whispered Aylward, "you never were a marksman.
Why must you thrust your spoon into this dish?"
"Easy and slow, Aylward. There are very many things which I cannot do, but there are also one or two which I have the trick of.
It is in my mind that I can beat this shoot, if my bow will but hold together."
"Go on, old babe of the woods!"
"Have at it, Hampshire!" cried the archers laughing.
"By my soul! you may grin," cried John. "But I learned how to make the long shoot from old Hob Miller of Milford."
He took up a great black bow, as he spoke, and sitting down upon the ground he placed his two feet on either end of the stave. With an arrow fitted, he then pulled the string towards him with both hands until the head of the shaft was level with the wood.
The great bow creaked and groaned and the cord vibrated with the tension.
"Who is this fool's-head who stands in the way of my shoot?" said he, craning up his neck from the ground.
"He stands on the further side of my mark," answered the Brabanter, "so he has little to fear from you."
"Well, the saints assoil him!" cried John. "Though I think he is over-near to be scathed."
As he spoke he raised his two feet, with the bow-stave upon their soles, and his cord twanged with a deep rich hum which might be heard across the valley.
The measurer in the distance fell flat upon his face, and then jumping up again, he began to run in the opposite direction.
"Well shot, old lad!
It is indeed over his head," cried the bowmen.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Brabanter, "who ever saw such a shoot?"