willow-bush."

Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him
in case of his escape: but the cry of "Shame! shame!" which
burst from the multitude, induced him to alter his ungenerous
purpose.

Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six
feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a
man's thumb. He began to peel this with great composure,
observing at the same time, that to ask a good woodsman to shoot
at a target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame
upon his skill. "For his own part," he said, "and in the land
where he was bred, men would as soon take for their mark King
Arthur's round-table, which held sixty knights around it. A
child of seven years old," he said, "might hit yonder target
with a headless shaft; but," added he, walking deliberately to
the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand upright
in the ground, "he that hits that rod at five-score yards, I call
him an archer fit to bear both bow and quiver before a king, an
it were the stout King Richard himself."

"My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good bow at the battle of
Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life---and neither
will I. If this yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the
bucklers---or rather, I yield to the devil that is in his jerkin,
and not to any human skill; a man can but do his best, and I will
not shoot where I am sure to miss. I might as well shoot at the
edge of our parson's whittle, or at a wheat straw, or at a
sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can hardly see."