or your foemen, for
either shall lead you astray.

"With the lords parley not, for ye know already what they would say to
you, and that is, 'Churl, let me bridle thee and saddle thee, and eat
thy livelihood that thou winnest, and call thee hard names because I
eat thee up; and for thee, speak not and do not, save as I bid thee.'

"All that is the end of their parleying.

"Therefore be ye bold, and again bold, and thrice bold! Grip the bow,
handle the staff, draw the sword, and set on in the name of the
Fellowship!"

He ended amid loud shouts; but straight-way answering shouts were
heard, and a great noise of the winding of horns, and I misdoubted a
new onslaught; and some of those in the throng began to string their
bows and handle their bills; but Will Green pulled me by the sleeve and
said:

"Friends are these by the winding of their horns; thou art quit for
this night, old lad." And then Jack Straw cried out from the cross:
"Fair and softly, my masters! These be men of our Fellowship, and are
for your guests this night; they are from the bents this side of
Medway, and are with us here because of the pilgrimage road, and that
is the best in these parts, and so the shortest to Rochester. And
doubt ye nothing of our being taken unawares this night; for I have
bidden and sent out watchers of the ways, and neither a man's son nor a
mare's son may come in on us without espial. Now make we our friends
welcome. Forsooth, I looked for them an hour later; and had they come
an hour earlier yet, some heads would now lie on the cold grass which
shall lie on a feather bed to-night. But let be, since all is well!

"Now get we home to our houses, and eat and drink and slumber this
night, if never once again, amid the multitude of friends and fellows;
and yet soberly and without riot, since so much work is to hand.
Moreover the priest saith, bear ye the dead men, both friends and foes,
into the chancel of the church, and there this night he will wake them:
but after to-morrow let the dead abide to bury their dead!"

Therewith he leapt down from the cross, and Will and I bestirred
ourselves and mingled with the new-comers. They were some three
hundred strong, clad and armed in all ways like the people of our
township, except some half-dozen whose armour shone cold like ice under
the moonbeams. Will Green soon had a dozen of them by the sleeve to
come home with him to board and bed, and then I lost him for some
minut