The archer, however, who had drunk more than any man in the room,
was as merry as a grig, and having kissed the matron and chased
the maid up the ladder once more, he went out to the brook, and
came back with the water dripping from his face and hair.
"Hola! my man of peace," he cried to Alleyne, "whither are you
bent this morning?"
"To Minstead," quoth he. "My brother Simon Edricson is socman
there, and I go to bide with him for a while. I prythee, let me
have my score, good dame."
"Score, indeed!" cried she, standing with upraised hands in front
of the panel on which Alleyne had worked the night before. "Say,
rather what it is that I owe to thee, good youth. Aye, this is
indeed a pied merlin, and with a leveret under its claws, as I am
a living woman. By the rood of Waltham! but thy touch is deft
and dainty."
"And see the red eye of it!" cried the maid.
"Aye, and the open beak."
"And the ruffled wing," added Hordle John.
"By my hilt!" cried the archer, "it is the very bird itself."
The young clerk flushed with pleasure at this chorus of praise,
rude and indiscriminate indeed, and yet so much heartier and less
grudging than any which he had ever heard from the critical
brother Jerome, or the short-spoken Abbot.
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