Oliver made friends of all, and thwacked and banged his enemies into respectful silence.  Felix made friends of none, and was equally despised by nominal friends and actual enemies.  Oliver was open and jovial; Felix reserved and contemptuous, or sarcastic in manner.  His slender frame, too tall for his width, was against him; he could neither lift the weights nor undergo the muscular strain readily borne by Oliver.  It was easy to see that Felix, although nominally the eldest, had not yet reached his full development.  A light complexion, fair hair and eyes, were also against him; where Oliver made conquests, Felix was unregarded.  He laughed, but perhaps his secret pride was hurt.

There was but one thing Felix could do in the way of exercise and sport.  He could shoot with the bow in a manner till then entirely unapproached.  His arrows fell unerringly in the centre of the target, the swift deer and the hare were struck down with ease, and even the wood-pigeon in full flight.  Nothing was safe from those terrible arrows.  For this, and this only, his fame had gone forth; and even this was made a source of bitterness to him.

The nobles thought no arms worthy of men of descent but the sword and lance; missile weapons, as the dart and arrow, were the arms of retainers.  His degradation was completed when, at a tournament, where he had mingled with the crowd, the Prince sent for him to shoot at the butt, and display his skill among the soldiery, instead of with the knights in the tilting ring.  Felix shot, indeed, but shut his eyes that the arrow might go wide, and was jeered at as a failure even in that ignoble competition.  Only by an iron self-control did he refrain that day from planting one of the despised shafts in the Prince’s eye.

But when Oliver joked him about his failure, Felix asked him to hang up his breastplate at two hundred yards.  He did so, and in an instant a shaft was sent through it.  After that Oliver held his peace, and in his heart began to think that the bow was a dangerous weapon.

“So you are late again this morning,” said Oliver, leaning against the recess of the window, and placing his arms on it.  The sunshine fell on his curly dark hair, still wet from the river.  “Studying last night, I suppose?” turning over the parchment.  “Why didn’t you ride into town with me?”

“The water must have been cold this morning?” said Felix, ignoring the question.

“Yes; there was a slight frost, or something like it, very early, and a mist on the surface; but it was splendid in the pool.  Why don’t you get up and come?  You used to.”

“I can swim,” said Felix laconically, implying that, having learnt the art, it no more tempted him.  “You were late last night.  I heard you put Night in.”

“We came home in style; it was rather dusky, but Night galloped the Green Miles.”

“Mind she doesn’t put her hoof in a rabbit’s hole, some night.”