There was not an archer nor a man-at-arms who did not bear a great
bundle of spoil upon his back, and Knolles frowned darkly as he looked
upon them. Gladly would he have thrown it all down by the roadside, but
he had tried such matters before, and he knew that it was as safe to
tear a half-gnawed bone from a bear as their blood-won plunder from such
men as these. In any case it was but two days' march to Ploermel, where
he hoped to bring his journey to an end.

That night they camped at Mauron, where a small English and Breton
garrison held the castle. Right glad were the bowmen to see some of
their own countrymen once more, and they spent the night over wine and
dice, a crowd of Breton girls assisting, so that next morning their
bundles were much lighter, and most of the plunder of La Brohiniere was
left with the men and women of Mauron. Next day their march lay with a
fair sluggish river upon their right, and a great rolling forest upon
their left which covered the whole country. At last toward evening the
towers of Ploermel rose before them and they saw against a darkening sky
the Red Cross of England waving in the wind. So blue was the river Duc
which skirted the road, and so green its banks, that they might indeed
have been back beside their own homely streams, the Oxford Thames or
the Midland Trent, but ever as the darkness deepened there came in wild
gusts the howling of wolves from the forest to remind them that they
were in a land of war. So busy had men been for many years in hunting
one another that the beasts of the chase had grown to a monstrous
degree, until the streets of the towns were no longer safe from the wild
inroads of the fierce creatures, the wolves and the bears, who swarmed
around them.

It was nightfall when the little army entered the outer gate of the
Castle of Ploermel and encamped in the broad Bailey yard. Ploermel was
at that time the center of British power in Mid-Brittany, as Hennebon
was in the West, and it was held by a garrison of five hundred men under
an old soldier, Richard of Bambro', a rugged Northumbrian, trained in
that great school of warriors, the border wars. He who had ridden the
marches of the most troubled frontier in Europe, and served his time
against the Liddlesdale and Nithsdale raiders was hardened for a life in
the field.

Of late, however, Bambro' had been unable to undertake any enterprise,
for his reinforcements had failed him, and amid his following he had