He roared out the catch in a harsh, unmusical voice, and ended
with a shout of laughter. "I trust that I am a better bowman
than a minstrel," said he.

"Methinks I have some remembrance of the lilt," remarked the
gleeman, running his fingers over the strings, "Hoping that it
will give thee no offence, most holy sir"--with a vicious snap at
Alleyne--"and with the kind permit of the company, I will even
venture upon it."

Many a time in the after days Alleyne Edricson seemed to see that
scene, for all that so many which were stranger and more stirring
were soon to crowd upon him. The fat, red-faced gleeman, the
listening group, the archer with upraised finger beating in time
to the music, and the huge sprawling figure of Hordle John, all
thrown into red light and black shadow by the flickering fire in
the centre--memory was to come often lovingly back to it. At the
time he was lost in admiration at the deft way in which the
jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings, and the
lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad
of the outland bowmen, which ran in some such fashion as this:

What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew tree
And the land where the yew tree grows.