[Red Eve by H. Rider Haggard]@TWC D-Link bookRed Eve CHAPTER II 6/27
Ay, and look at our shadows on the snow.
Mine lies flat by a great hole, and yours rising against yonder bank is that of a hooded man with hollow eyes--Death himself as I should limn him! There, it is gone! What a fool am I, or how strong is that wine of yours! Shall we be going also ?" "Nay, here comes my son with tidings.
Well, Jack, have you found your sister ?" he added, addressing a dark and somewhat saturnine young man who now rode up to them from over the crest of the hollow. "No, sir, though we have beat the marsh through and through, so that scarce an otter could have escaped us.
And yet she's here, for Thomas of Kessland caught sight of her red cloak among the reeds, and what's more, Hugh de Cressi is with her, and Grey Dick too, for both were seen." "I am glad there's a third," said Sir John drily, "though God save me from his arrows! This Grey Dick," he added to the Count, "is a wild, homeless half-wit whom they call Hugh de Cressi's shadow, but the finest archer in Suffolk, with Norfolk thrown in; one who can put a shaft through every button on your doublet at fifty paces--ay, and bring down wild geese on the wing twice out of four times, for I have seen him do it with that black bow of his." "Indeed? Then I should like to see him shoot--at somebody else," answered Acour, for in those days such skill was of interest to all soldiers.
"Kill Hugh de Cressi if you will, friend, but spare Grey Dick; he might be useful." "Ay, Sir Edmund," broke in the young man furiously, "I'll kill him if I can catch him, the dog who dares to bring scandal on my sister's name. Let the Saints but give me five minutes face to face with him alone, with none to help either of us, and I'll beat him to a pulp, and hang what's left of him upon the nearest tree to be a warning to all such puppies." "I note the challenge," said Sir Edmund, "and should the chance come my way will keep the lists for you with pleasure, since whatever this Hugh may be I doubt that from his blood he'll prove no coward.
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