"Hola, mon petit!" said Aylward, coming up to where he stood.
"Thou art a squire now, and like enough to win the golden spurs,
while I am still the master-bowman, and master-bowman I shall
bide. I dare scarce wag my tongue so freely with you as when we
tramped together past Wilverley Chase, else I might be your guide
now, for indeed I know every house in Bordeaux as a friar knows
the beads on his rosary."
"Nay, Aylward," said Alleyne, laying his hand upon the sleeve of
his companion's frayed jerkin, "you cannot think me so thrall as
to throw aside an old friend because I have had some small share
of good fortune. I take it unkind that you should have thought
such evil of me."
"Nay, mon gar. 'Twas but a flight shot to see if the wind blew
steady, though I were a rogue to doubt it."
"Why, had I not met you, Aylward, at the Lynhurst inn, who can
say where I had now been! Certes, I had not gone to Twynham
Castle, nor become squire to Sir Nigel, nor met----" He paused
abruptly and flushed to his hair, but the bowman was too busy
with his own thoughts to notice his young companion's
embarrassment.
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