e circuit of the
Burg, were a few trees growing. Thus they came into a little wood and
passed through it, and then Ralph could see that the men were six
besides Roger; by the glimmer of the growing dawn he saw before them a
space of meadows with high hedges about them, and a dim line that he
took for the roof of a barn or grange, and beyond that a dark mass of
trees.

Still they pressed on without speaking; a dog barked not far off and
the cocks were crowing, and close by them in the meadow a cow lowed and
went hustling over the bents and the long, unbitten buttercups. Day
grew apace, and by then they were under the barn-gable which he had
seen aloof he saw the other roofs of the grange and heard the bleating
of sheep. And now he saw those six men clearly, and noted that one of
them was very big and tall, and one small and slender, and it came into
his mind that these two were none other than the twain whom he had come
upon the last night sitting in the hall of the Flower de Luce.

Even therewith came a man to the gate of the sheep-cote by the grange,
and caught sight of them, and had the wits to run back at once shouting
out: "Hugh, Wat, Richard, and all ye, out with you, out a doors! Here
be men! Ware the Dry Tree! Bows and bills! Bows and bills!"

With that those fellows of Ralph made no more ado, but set off running
at their best toward the wood aforesaid, which crowned the slope
leading up from the grange, and now took no care to go softly, nor
heeded the clashing of their armour. Ralph ran with the best and
entered the wood alongside the slim youth aforesaid, who stayed not at
the wood's edge but went on running still: but Ralph stayed and turned
to see what was toward, and beheld how that tall man was the last of
their company, and ere he entered the wood turned about with a bent bow
in his hand, and even as he nocked the shaft, the men from the Grange,
who were seven in all, came running out from behind the barn-gable,
crying out: "Ho thieves! ho ye of the Dry Tree, abide till we come!
flee not from handy strokes." The tall man had the shaft to his ear in
a twinkling, and loosed straightway, and nocked and loosed another
shaft without staying to note how the first had sped. But Ralph saw
that a man was before each of the shafts, and had fallen to earth,
though he had no time to see aught else, for even therewith the tall
man caught him by the hand, and crying out, "The third time!" ran on
with him a