lusty friend, if you raise your great cudgel to me. I had as lief have the castle drawbridge drop upon my pate.'
'Tell me, Aylward,' said Alleyne earnestly, with hands outstretched to keep the pair asunder, 'what is the cause of quarrel, that we may see whether honourable settlement may not be arrived at?'
The bowman looked down at his feet and then up at the moon. 'Parbleu!' he cried, 'the cause of quarrel? Why, mon petit, it was years ago in Limousin, and how can I bear in mind what was the cause of it? Simon there hath it at the end of his tongue.'
'Not I, in troth,' replied the other; 'I have had other things to think of. There was some sort of bickering over dice, or wine, or was it a woman, coz?'
'Pasques Dieu! but you have nicked it,' cried Aylward. 'It was indeed about a woman; and the quarrel must go forward, for I am still of the same mind as before.'
'What of the woman, then?' asked Simon. 'May the murrain strike me if I can call to mind aught about her.'
'It was La Blanche Rose, maid at the sign of the "Trois Corbeaux" at Limoges. Bless her pretty heart! Why, mon gar, I loved her.'
'So did a many,' quoth Simon. 'I call her to mind now. On the very day that we fought over the little hussy, she went off with Evan ap Price, a long-legged Welsh dagsman. They have a hostel of their own now, somewhere on the banks of Garonne, where the landlord drinks so much of the liquor that there is little left for the customers.'
'So ends our quarrel, then,' said Aylward, sheathing his sword. 'A Welsh dagsman, i' faith! C'était mauvais goût, camarade, and the more so when she had a jolly archer and a lusty man-at-arms to choose from.'
'True, old lad. And it is as well that we can compose our differences honourably, for Sir Nigel had been out at the first clash of steel; and he hath sworn that if there be quarrelling in the garrison he would smite the right hand
