Company into Italy, stand laughing in his beard as he heard it,
until his plates rattled again. But to get the full smack of it
ye must yourselves be English bowmen, and be far off upon an
outland soil."

Whilst the song had been singing Dame Eliza and the maid had
placed a board across two trestles, and had laid upon it the
knife, the spoon, the salt, the tranchoir of bread, and finally
the smoking dish which held the savory supper. The archer
settled himself to it like one who had known what it was to find
good food scarce; but his tongue still went as merrily as his
teeth.

"It passes me," he cried, "how all you lusty fellows can bide
scratching your backs at home when there are such doings over the
seas. Look at me--what have I to do? It is but the eye to the
cord, the cord to the shaft, and the shaft to the mark. There is
the whole song of it. It is but what you do yourselves for
pleasure upon a Sunday evening at the parish village butts."

"And the wage?" asked a laborer.

"You see what the wage brings," he answered. "I eat of the best,
and I drink deep. I treat my friend, and I ask no friend to
treat me. I clap a silk gown on my girl's back. Never a
knight's lady shall be better betrimmed and betrinketed. How of
all that, mon garcon? And how of the heap of trifles that you
can see for yourselves in yonder corner? They are from the South
French, every one, upon whom I have been making war. By my hilt!
camarades, I think that I may let my plunder speak for itself."