The White Company / Белый отряд. Книга для чтения на английском языке

”

“And where got you all those pretty things?” asked Hordle John, pointing at the heap in the corner.

“Where there is as much more waiting for any brave lad to pick it up. Where a good man can always earn a good wage, and where he need look upon no man as his paymaster, but just reach his hand out and help himself. Aye, it is a goodly and a proper life. And here I drink to mine old comrades, and the saints be with them! A rouse all together, mes enfants[55 - mes enfants – (фр.) дети мои], under pain of my displeasure! To Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!”

“Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!” shouted the travellers, draining off their goblets.

“Well quaffed, mes braves[56 - mes braves – (фр.) мои храбрецы]! It is for me to fill your cups again, since you have drained them to my dear lads of the white jerkin. Holà! mon ange[57 - mon ange – (фр.) ангел мой], bring wine and ale.

How runs the old stave? —

We’ll drink all together

To the grey goose feather

And the land where the grey goose flew.

He roared out the catch in a harsh unmusical voice, and ended with a shout of laughter. “I trust that I am a better bowman than a minstrel,” said he.

“Methinks I have some remembrance of the lilt,” remarked the gleeman, running his fingers over the strings. “Hoping that it will give thee no offence, most holy sir” – with a vicious snap at Alleyne – “and with the kind permit of the company, I will even venture upon it.

At the time he was lost in admiration at the deft way in which the jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings, and the lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad of the outland bowmen, which ran in some such fashion as this:

What of the bow?

The bow was made in England:

Of true wood, of yew-wood,

The wood of English bows;

So men who are free

Love the old yew-tree

And the land where the yew-tree grows.

What of the cord?

The cord was made in England:

A rough cord, a tough cord,

A cord that bowmen love;

So we’ll drain our jacks

To the English flax

And the land where the hemp was wove.

What of the shaft?

The shaft was cut in England:

A long shaft, a strong shaft,

Barbed and trim and true;

So we’ll drink all together

To the grey goose feather

And the land where the grey goose flew.