“And now,” said Locksley, “I crave your Grace’s permission to plant such a mark as is used in the North Country; and welcome every brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonnie lass he loves best.”
He then turned to leave the lists. “Let your guards attend me,” he said, “if you please—I go but to cut a rod from the nearest willow bush.”
Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him in case of his escape; but the cry of “Shame! shame!” which burst from the multitude, induced him to alter his ungenerous purpose.
Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man’s thumb. He began to peel this with great composure, observing, at the same time, that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. A child of seven years old, he said, might hit it with a headless shaft; but, he added, walking deliberately to the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, “he that hits that rod at fivescore yards, I call him an archer fit to bear both bow and quiver before a king, even if it were the stout King Richard himself.”
“My grandsire,” said Hubert, “drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life—and neither shall I. If this yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers—or rather, I yield to the fiend that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill. I might as well shoot at the edge of our parson’s whittle, or at a wheat straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can hardly see.”
“Cowardly dog!” said Prince John. “Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot; but, if thou hittest such a mark, I shall say thou art the first man ever did so. Howe’er it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of superior skill.”
“I shall do my best, as Hubert says,” said Locksley; “no man can do more.”
So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked with attention to his weapon, and changed the string which he thought was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of his skill; his arrow split the willow rod against which it was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and even Prince John, in admiration of Locksley’s skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his person. “These twenty nobles,” he said, “which, with the bugle thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we shall make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our bodyguard, and be near to our person. For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a shaft.”
“Pardon me, noble Prince,” said Locksley; “but I have vowed that if ever I take service, it shall be with your royal brother, King Richard. These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had he not refused the trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I.”
Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed with the crowd and was seen no more.—Sir Walter Scott.