Marvin turned away full eagerly to give orders for the making of the slanting trough of planks down which the bowling ball should roll; and as I saw the light in his eyes my heart did warm toward our faithful and stout-hearted old follower that he should devise this play to save his archer fame. For plain it was to me that my father had been well pleased at this thought of Marvin’s, believing that in this game which was his very own, and practiced by none beyond the lands of Mountjoy, he would display such mastery as would far outweigh any vantage that young Cedric might gain at the bull’s-eye shooting. Many hands made light work of the making ready. Soon a trough of planks went up to one side of the arrow course, and eighty yards from the mark at which the archers stood. One end was raised four yards from the earth on a scaffolding on which a lad might climb to place the bowling balls in groove. When, at the word, he rolled one from him, it dashed down the slope and rolled and bounded o’er the sod for thirty paces, full like a hare started from his covert by the hunters. To strike this ball in full career with cross-bow bolt was no child’s play. To this could I well swear, for never yet had I succeeded in doing so, when, two years agone, Old Marvin had sought to teach me. As I recalled my many bootless trials, I laughed to think of Cedric and the game Old Marvin now had played on him. Now came the cross-bow men to the mark for the target shooting. Old Marvin began, and in high confidence. But verily, Fortune frowned on him, for the wind that had been but a breath before, sprung up just as he laid finger to trigger; and his first two bolts missed the white by half an inch. Then came three well within the circle; but the old archer’s face bore a piteous frown as he made way for Cedric, for he had thought to equal the long-bow shooting of his old gossip of Pelham Wood. Cedric quickly sent three bolts to the bull’s-eye. Then his hand seemed to tremble; and methought he suffered from the eyes of such a crowd of witnesses. His fourth bolt struck just outside the black, and the fifth went two inches wide. “What ails thee, lad?” questioned his father, full sharply. “Marvin had the wind to fight; but the air was quiet for thee. Methinks the fare of Mountjoy hall too rich for a plain forester. Thou handled thy weapon better on rye bread and pease porridge.” “Mayhap thou’rt right, Father,” returned Cedric with a laugh. “Or mayhap I grow soft with sleeping on so fair a couch of wool. To-day I cannot shoot, it seems. Another day may better it.”