the pleasure of their
new lives: and one of their old men that I have spoken with told me
this; that before when they were little better than the thralls of the
Burg, and durst scarce raise a hand against the foemen, the carles were
but slow to love, and the queans, for all their fairness, cold and but
little kind. However, now in the fields of the wheat-wearers
themselves all this was changed, and men and maids took to arraying
themselves gaily as occasion served, and there was singing and dancing
on every green, and straying of couples amongst the greenery of the
summer night; and in short the god of love was busy in the land, and
made the eyes seem bright, and the lips sweet, and the bosom fair, and
the arms sleek and the feet trim: so that every hour was full of
allurement; and ever the nigher that war and peril was, the more
delight had man and maid of each other's bodies.

"Well, within a while the Wheat-wearers were grown so full of hope that
they bade the men of the Dry Tree lead them against the Burg of the
Four Friths, and the Champions were ready thereto; because they wotted
well, that, Hampton being disgarnished of men, the men of the Burg
might fall on it; and even if they took it not, they would beset all
ways and make riding a hard matter for their fellowship. So they fell
to, wisely and deliberately, and led an host of the best of the carles
with them, and bade the women keep their land surely, so that their
host was not a great many. But so wisely they led them that they came
before the Burg well-nigh unawares; and though it seemed little likely
that they should take so strong a place, yet nought less befell. For
the Burg-dwellers beset with cruelty and bitter anger cried out that
now at last they would make an end of this cursed people, and the
whoreson strong-thieves their friends: so they went out a-gates a great
multitude, but in worser order than their wont was; and there befell
that marvel which sometimes befalleth even to very valiant men, that
now at the pinch all their valour flowed from them, and they fled
before the spears had met, and in such evil order that the gates could
not be shut, and their foemen entered with them slaying and slaying
even as they would. So that in an hour's space the pride and the
estate of the Burg of the Four Friths was utterly fallen. Huge was the
slaughter; for the Wheat-wearers deemed they had many a grief whereof
to avenge them; nor were the men of the Dr