truth is a knotty question to answer, and I confess myself grievously in the wrong, in thus breaking my watch, and feel the more inclined to say, let us make a pact together, for if you inform not on me, then is my mouth shut regarding your own flagrant delinquencies. These I find hard to pardon, for a man owes it to his comrades during besiegement to stand by them and not to be found coming up from the camp of the enemy."
"I am not on guard, and therefore have broken no oath. My desertion is as white compared to thine as was my face to thine a few moments since."
"True, true. There is much to be said on both sides of the question, and if I had the judging in the matter we should each of us hang, that is, did the cases come impartially before me, without personal consequences affecting me in any way. And to think that I once had the privilege of sending an arrow through you at three yards distance, was begged to speed it, and neglected the opportunity! It serves me right well to be choked for thus putting aside the gifts of Providence."
"I am truly sorry I laid hands on you, but I was looking for an attack by the Archbishop's men, and when you came suddenly upon me I did what seemed best, for it is ill running up the hill, and I feared to run down as I heard this fellow on my track."
"I was journeying to meet my friend," said Roger, "and had no thought that any was before me until I heard the struggle. We seem all three equally foolish and equally guilty, therefore let us all forgive one another, as becomes Christians."
"I bear no malice," said Surrey; "but I will say that had he not taken me unaware, as I was looking for a friend, the contest might have turned out differently. Still it matters little, unless they have discovered my absence in the castle and have sent Conrad in search of me, in the which case I had better abandon bow and take to the camp of the Archbishops. Were you looking for me, Conrad? If not, why are you here?"
"I left the castle long before you did, most like. I went to the village to find Hilda, who was with us on the voyage down from Treves."
"Ah, that is the wench for whose sake you risked having an arrow hurtled through your vitals at Zurlauben, and, learning nothing, stake your life for her again. The folly of man!"
"Judge him not harshly, John," murmured the poet. "Admire rather the power wielded by true love. 'Tis the most beautiful thing on earth: the noblest passion that inspires the human breast. That a man should gladly venture his life on the chance of a few words with his beloved, shows us this world is not the sordid, disputatious place we sometimes fancy it to be. What other motive could so influence a man?"
"Tush, Roger!" cried his friend, with some impatience. "Your head is ever in the clouds, and you therefore see not what lies at your feet. Thousands of men continually risk their lives, and lose them, for less than threepence a day. No such motive as love! Nonsense! Friendship is every whit as strong, and we stand here to prove it, who have both this night risked our lives that we may but talk with one another. Out upon rhapsodies."
"Nay, John, if you were a true poet you would not speak in gross ignorance as now you do. If you try to weave friendship into verse you will find that it rouses not the warmth which the smaller word 'love' calls forth. I say nothing against friendship, for I have tasted the sweets of it, and I know nothing of love, having never myself experienced a touch of it, but I find that in the making of poetry love is the most useful of all the themes that a poet may play upon. Yet have I but to-day accomplished a poem on the delights of friendship, which I will now recite to you both, and which I think does justice to the subject in a manner that has hitherto been withheld from all writers, save perhaps Homer himself!"
"I must be gone to the castle," said Conrad.
"We will walk up the hill with you," rejoined Surrey, "and, Conrad, I wish you would take my watch on the wall till I relieve you. I desire to have converse with my friend here, and we will sit under the wall, where you can give me timely warning if you hear any one approach from within, although I think such interruption most unlikely. Was it on your rope I descended, I wonder?"
"I left a rope dangling at the north-west corner."
"That was it. I marvelled how it came there, and thought it had been flung up by the besiegers, remaining unseen by the garrison. Will you, then, take my watch for a time, Conrad?"
"Surely. 'Tis but slight recompense for the choking I——"
"Yes, yes," interrupted the archer, hurriedly, "we will not speak of that, for you took me by surprise. Mount to the battlements, and you will find my pike lying on the top of the wall near the place of descent."
They had by this time reached the castle, and there they stood for a few moments and listened, but everything was quiet, and Conrad, aided by the hanging rope, ascended to the top, while the two archers sat down at the foot of the northern tower.
"The poem on 'Friendship,'—" began Roger.
"Yes," broke in his friend, "we will come to it presently. How is it you are fighting for the Archbishop?"
"How is it you sent no word back to me as you promised to do?"
"That is a long story. They would not even let me enter Treves, for there was nothing of all this afoot when I was there. On finding service at last, having journeyed to a hill-top within a league of this place, I tried to send tidings to you by the young man who has just left us, but he was baffled and turned back by the forces of the Archbishop, and could no more get to Treves than I could enter it once I was at its gates. We are all prisoners here, and until your arrow tapped my steel cap I knew not where you were."
"Hearing nothing I went to Treves in search of you, regretting I had not accompanied you, but you know there were important poems that I wished to complete when you left me—they are all finished now, and it would have done you good to hear them, in fact, it was that which made me follow you to Treves, for the consummation of a poem is the listening to it. There is one set of verses on 'Sleep' that luckily I remember, and can recite, if you will but harken."
"What happened when you reached Treves?"
"I made enquiry concerning you from all with whom I could gain speech, but there was nothing save talk of war in the place, and nowhere could I hear aught of you. One army had already left Treves, marching eastward, and another was then filling its ranks. The officer I spoke with, who was inducing all he could to join, offering great chances of plunder when the castle was taken, said he remembered you well, and that you had gone with the first army, leaving word that I was to join and follow you."
"The liar. I wonder the Archbishop retains the service of such, although perhaps he does not know his officers hold the truth in contempt."
"It is strange you should refer so warmly to truth, for I esteem it the choicest of all virtues, and have written a poem on 'Whiterobed Truth,' which I hope remains in my memory, seeing it is so dark that no reading may be done. It begins——"
"You believed him, of course, and enlisted with him?"
"Yes. He said we should find you here, and so indeed have I, but in the opposite camp. I marched with them down the river, and when we arrived I heard such wonderful stories of an infallible archer in the castle that I knew he must be you."
"Yes," cried John, rubbing his hands together in glee, "it was the most heavenly opportunity ever bestowed upon a mortal man. I wish you had been there to see. I was in the tower above the enemy, and I shot them in the neck, stringing them one after another on the shafts, like running skewers in a round of beef. Not one did I miss."
"Oh, 'tis easily done," commented Roger, carelessly. "'Tis instinct, largely; you glance at your mark, and next instant your arrow is there."
"Roger Kent," replied the other, in a despondent tone, "I have on various occasions passed favourable judgment on your poems; I think you might, in return, admit that I am at least proficient in the rudiments of archery."
"John Surrey, I have more than once expressed the opinion, which I still hold, that you will in time, with careful practice, become a creditable archer. You would not have me say more and thus forswear myself."
"No," admitted John; "I am well content when you say as much, and