ear humming noise went forth into the sunlit air, and
spurred on so hard that he outwent every man there.

But when the Skinners saw those riders coming on, they stayed the
chase, and some few tarried while they shot from their short-bows,
which did but little harm, and so they hustled back into the thorp;
and some few, the first of them, gat through and off into the fields;
but the fleers drew aside to the right hand and the left, calling
blessings on the good Knight and his, and, when the torrent of them
was past, followed after timidly towards their wasted dwelling. And as
Sir Godrick and his were within the thorp they found a many of the
Skinners there (two hundreds of their carcases were buried afterwards)
and all about by the houses lay mangled bodies of the country-folk,
some few with weapons in their hands, but more of women and children.
But when Godrick and his had slain the first plump that they had
driven in from the road, the Knight cried out: "Ye thorp-dwellers,
look to quenching the fires, while we slay you these wolf-swine."
Thereon the countrymen began to run together with buckets wherever the
riders were before them. And there was a pretty stream running down
the mid-most of the street, and though it were dyed with blood that
day, it was no worse for the quenching of the flames. Meanwhile Sir
Godrick and his set themselves to the work, and it was not right
perilous, for the thieves were all about scattermeal in twos and
threes, and most afoot robbing and murdering and fire-raising, so that
they made but such defence, when they made any, as the rat makes to
the terrier. Shortly to say it, in half an hour there was not one of
them left alive, save some few who gat to their horses and fled,
having cast away their weapons and armour. Then the riders turned to
help the thorp-dwellers in quenching their fires, and in some two
hours they had got all under wherein was any hope, and the rest they
must let burn away.

Then would Sir Godrick have gone his ways, but the poor folk of the
thorp prayed him so piteously to abide till the morrow that he had no
heart to naysay them. So they brought him and his what things they
might get together after the ravage, and begrudged them nought.
Moreover in the morning five stout fellows of the younger sort prayed
him to take them with him to serve him in war, since they knew not now
how to live; so he yeasaid them, nothing loth, and horsed them on the
Skinners' way-beasts,