And to think I have nothing to set before my servant that loves me so dear." Martin scratched his head.

"What can I do ?" "It is Thursday; it is your day to shoot; sooth to Say, I counted on you to-day." "Nay," said the soldier, "I may not shoot when the Duke or his friends are at the chase; read else.

I am no scholar." And he took out of his pouch a parchment with a grand seal.

It purported to be a stipend and a licence given by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, to Martin Wittenhaagen, one of his archers, in return for services in the wars, and for a wound received at the Dukes side.

The stipend was four merks yearly, to be paid by the Duke's almoner, and the licence was to shoot three arrows once a week, viz., on Thursday, and no other day, in any of the Duke's forests in Holland, at any game but a seven-year-old buck or a doe carrying fawn; proviso, that the Duke should not be hunting on that day, or any of his friends.