My father gazed at the glowing face of our new-made friend; and plain it was to me that the liking he had at first conceived for the lad suffered nothing from this headlong eagerness to be up and doing with arms in his hands. Turning to Cedric and me, with a broad and happy smile, Lord Mountjoy said: “Well, lads, ’twas your quarrel and Sir Geoffrey’s at the first. What say you? Shall we risk the scattering and ’scaping of these rogues by waiting till the fall for him? For I plainly see that, with all good will, he cannot rightly ride and fight before that time in such a rough campaign as this will be.” “Oh, let us wait, Father!” I cried, “Sir Geoffrey hath the right in saying ’tis especially the Carleton’s quarrel; and ’twill be a fine sight for all the countryside to see the banners of Mountjoy and of Carleton waving together in so good a cause after all these years of enmity. Mayhap Sir Geoffrey will return with usury the arrow-shot he had from those scurvy knaves. If so, ’twill not be an ill beginning for his career in arms.” Cedric, who was ever of few words, nodded his head at this speech of mine; and so ’twas settled among us. Through the summer months we would strike no blow at the outlaws save in defense, but at the fall of the leaf, when the woods made not so close a cover, we would fall upon them in their fastnesses with all our forces at once, and so destroy and scatter them that the woodland roads of the whole county would be free of their kind for years to come. A week later Sir Geoffrey took his way to his great castle at Teramore under a strong escort of Carleton men-at-arms. Ten days thereafter Cedric and I rode thither to pay a promised visit and to talk of the outlaw hunt and our great plans for the days to follow. Sir Geoffrey showed himself a most gracious host; and we passed some goodly hours in the Carleton hall and in the courtyard where Cedric did try most manfully to impart to Geoffrey and me some measure of his cross-bow skill. For my own handling of this weapon, I fear that all Cedric’s and old Marvin’s teachings are bootless, and that never shall I shoot with any certainty; but, to Cedric’s huge delight, Sir Geoffrey took to the exercise like one born in a forester’s cottage. In half an hour he was striking marks at fifty paces that were small enough for Cedric’s own aim at twice that distance, and his instructor was prophesying he would be a bonny archer long before he could well handle a broadsword. This I thought likely enough, for Geoffrey, though his age lacked but half a year of Cedric’s and mine, was somewhat lightly built and had not yet the reach and the forearm muscles that make a swordsman. ’Twas plain that among us three I should long remain the master with this best of weapons; and with this thought to console me, I took it not too ill that I should prove such a poor third at the archery.