Martin Conisby

"As how, my son?" he questioned.

"With bow and arrows." At this he sat up to watch me at work and very eager to aid me therein. "So you shall, sir," said I, and having tapered my bow-stave sufficiently, I showed him how to trim the shafts as smooth and true as possible with a cleft or notch at one end into which I set one of my rusty nails, binding it there with strips from my tattered shirt; in place of feathers I used a tuft of grass and behold! my arrow was complete, and though a poor thing to look at yet it would answer well enough, as I knew by experience. So we fell to our arrow-making, wherein I found Sir Richard very quick and skilful, as I told him, the which seemed to please him mightily.

"For," said he miserably, "I feel myself such a burden to thee, Martin, that anything I can do to lighten thy travail be to me great comfort."

"Sir," said I, "these many years have I been a solitary man hungering for companionship, and, in place of enemy, God hath given me a friend and one I do love and honour. As to his crippled body, sir, it beareth no scar but is a badge of honour, and if he halt in his gait or fail by the way, this doth but remind me of his dauntless soul that, despite pain and torment, endured."

So saying, I caught up such arrows as were finished (four in all) and taking my bow, set forth in quest of supper, with Pluto at my heels. Nor had I far to seek, for presently I espied several of these monstrous birds among the trees and, stringing my bow with a length of cord, I crept forward until I was in easy range and, setting arrow to string, let fly. Away sang my shaft, a yard wide of the mark, soaring high into the air and far beyond all hope of recovery.

This put me in a fine rage, for not only had I lost my precious arrow, but the quarry also, for off flapped my bird, uttering a hoarse cackle as in derision of my ill aim. On I went, seeking for something should serve us for supper, yet look where I would, saw nothing, no, not so much as parrot or macaw that might stay us for lack of better fare. On I went, and mightily hungry, wandering haphazard and nothing to reward me until, reaching an opening or glade shut in by dense thickets beyond, I sat me upon a fallen tree and in mighty ill humour, the dog Pluto at my feet. Suddenly I saw him start and prick his ears, and presently, sure enough, heard a distant stir and rustling in the thickets that grew rapidly nearer and louder to trampling rush; and out from the leaves broke some dozen or so young pigs; but espying the dog they swung about in squealing terror and plunged back again. But in that moment I let fly among them and was mighty glad to see one roll over and lie kicking, filling the air with shrill outcry; then Pluto was upon it and had quickly finished the poor beast, aye, and would have devoured it, too, had I not driven him off with my bow-stave.