By the time those of you that are alive
have got together they have gone, and all is so quiet that were it not for
the scattered bodies you might believe that it was all a dream. Two or
three times before morning the attack will be repeated, until you are
forced to keep under arms in military array. As soon as it is light you
recommence your march, and so it goes on day after day, until at last,
worn-out and spent, and less in strength by half than when you started, you
gather under the shelter of the walls of one of the border towns.
"I should have been glad indeed if we had caught their king, for if he had
been held hostage in London we might have had peace; but well content am I
that Harold has abstained from entering upon a campaign which, terrible as
it is even in summer, would be beyond endurance of the strongest in
winter."
"Well, for my part," Osgod, who was one of the listeners, remarked, "I
would rather go on by myself and take the chance of getting a good blow at
some of these wild men than ride all the way back to Steyning to be laughed
at by the women there, as brave soldiers who have marched across England
and back and never unsheathed their swords. Nor will I believe that Earl
Harold can intend so to make a laughing-stock of us. The Bretons were just
as active as are these Welshmen, but he brought them to reason there, and I
warrant me he will do the same here. At any rate, he seems in no hurry to
move.
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