[Illustration: GUY HAS HIS HEAD BOUND UP AFTER A BOUT AT QUARTER-STAFF.]

"_Pardieu_, master page," he said one day when Guy came in from the
court-yard to have his head, which was streaming with blood, bound up,
"our French pages would marvel indeed if they saw you. They all practise
in arms as you do, save with the shooting; but they would consider it
would demean them sorely to join in such rough sports with their
inferiors, or to run the risk of getting their beauty spoiled by a rough
blow. No wonder your knights strike so mightily in battle when they are
accustomed to strike so heavily in sport. I saw one of your men-at-arms
yesterday bury his axe to the very head in a block of oak; he wagered a
stoup of wine that no two of my men-at-arms would get the axe out, and he
won fairly, for indeed it took four of the knaves at the handle to tug it
out, and then indeed it needed all their strength. No armour ever forged
could have withstood such a blow; it-would have cracked both the casque
and the skull inside like egg-shells. It seemed to me that a thousand such
men, with as many archers, could march through France from end to end, if
they kept well together, and were well supplied with meat and drink by the
way--they would need that, for they are as good trenchermen as they are
fighters, and indeed each man amongst them eats as much as three of my
fellows."

"Yes, they want to be well fed," Guy laughed, "and they are rarely pleased
with the provision that you make for them; surely not one of them ever fed
so well before."

"Food does not cost much," the captain said; "we have herds of our own
which run half wild on the low ground near the river, which our lords
always keep in hand for their own uses, and they multiply so fast that
they are all the better for thinning; we sell a few occasionally, but they