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
hath been owing over long. What is 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
arrow-flight of them."
"May you live to see it," quoth the bowman. "And hark ye, mes
enfants, take an old soldier's rede 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, yet it is
more often that he has to do with a town-guard behind a wall, or
an arbalestier with his mantlet raised when you cannot hope to do
him scathe unless your shaft fall straight upon him from the
clouds.
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