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When every
man's grip is on his neighbor's throat, and every five-sous-piece
of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom he will,
it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys
could not pick up a living. Now that Sir John Hawkwood hath gone
with the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham woodmen into the
service of the Marquis of Montferrat to fight against the Lord of
Milan, there are but ten score of us left, yet I trust that I may
be able to bring some back with me to fill the ranks of the White
Company. By the tooth of Peter! it would be a bad thing if I
could not muster many a Hamptonshire man who would be ready to
strike in under the red flag of St. George, and the more so if
Sir Nigel Loring, of Christchurch, should don hauberk once more
and take the lead of us."
"Ah, you would indeed be in luck then," quoth a woodman; "for it
is said that, setting aside the prince, and mayhap good old Sir
John Chandos, there was not in the whole army a man of such tried
courage."
"It is sooth, every word of it," the archer answered.


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