"Pardon my hasty speech, Kate," he said, abashed by her look, and reproached by the cutting irony of her words, approaching her as he spoke with an air of deep mortification, "forgive—"
"To Cormac, sir, not me."
"For Cormac, in atonement, I will send from Castle More a fat buck, with this very arrow sticking in its heart; but," he added, with haughty fierceness, "I will ask no man's forgiveness. If I have offended, I am ready to stand by my words."
"Marry come up! we are like to have a letting of blood here," said the maiden, between jest and seriousness. "Will you be docile, Robert?"
"At your bidding, Kate, as a lamb."
"Very like a lamb. Forget it, Dermot. You have made his pride a little sore to tell him, before a lady, he knew not how to choose a shaft, and so unfit to be an esquire of archery."
"Young blood will up," said the forester. "I meant not to gainsay your skill, Master Robert, for it's known to every bowman that no young hand in the county can send a shaft farther or surer than young Lord Robert of Castle More."
"That will do, Cormac. Now, Robert, see that you henceforward take fire less readily; and you, good Dermot, refrain from wounding the esteem of these young lords. Verily, it behooves me to look to my own speech in such fiery company. Nay, Robert," she added, laughing, "I have done. Give me the shafts; and, as we are to have three shots apiece at the target, I will shoot one of each kind, and be the prize his whose arrow wins! Give me them, Robert!—nay, don't press my fingers so hard; I don't want them in my hand, but in the pouch. Go, Cormac, I am ready. I see my lady mother is shaking her silver arrow at me already for loitering here when I should be at the post."
The next moment she had joined the archers, and the trial of skill forthwith commenced. The first arrow that was shot was from the bow of a fair-haired girl, in a blue hat and a silken bodice of the same colour; it flew wide of the mark, and quivered in the trunk of a tree sixty yards off.
"There was nerve in that, Lady Eustace," said old Cormac, who watched each shot with professional interest; "but you grasped the handle of your bow too tightly, and so made your aim unsteady. Hold your bow as lightly as you would a hunting-whip. 'Tis not strength, but skill, that sends the bolt into the eye of the butt."