Irish.

Here birth caused no distinctions; the escaped serf, with the gall
marks of his brass collar still visible about his neck, rode shoulder to
shoulder with the outlawed scion of a noble house. The only requisites
for admission to the troop were willingness and ability to fight, and an
oath to obey the laws made by Norman of Torn.

The little army was divided into ten companies of one hundred men, each
company captained by a fighter of proven worth and ability.

Our old friends Red Shandy, and John and James Flory led the first three
companies, the remaining seven being under command of other seasoned
veterans of a thousand fights.

One Eye Kanty, owing to his early trade, held the always important
post of chief armorer, while Peter the Hermit, the last of the five
cut-throats whom Norman of Torn had bested that day, six years before,
in the hut of Father Claude, had become majordomo of the great castle of
Torn, which post included also the vital functions of quartermaster and
commissary.

The old man of Torn attended to the training of serf and squire in
the art of war, for it was ever necessary to fill the gaps made in the
companies, due to their constant encounters upon the highroad and their
battles at the taking of some feudal castle; in which they did not
always come off unscathed, though usually victorious.

Today, as they wound west across the valley, Norman of Torn rode at the
head of the cavalcade, which strung out behind him in a long column.
Above his gray steel armor, a falcon's wing rose from his crest. It was
the insignia which always marked him to his men in the midst of battle.
Where it waved might always be found the fighting and the honors, and
about it they were wont to rally.

Beside Norman of Torn rode the grim, gray, old man, silent and taciturn;
nursing his deep hatred in the depths of his malign brain.

At the head of their respective companies rode the five captains: Red
Shandy; John Flory; Edwild the Serf; Emilio, Count de Gropello of Italy;
and Sieur Ralph de la Campnee, of France.

The hamlets and huts which they passed in the morning and early
afternoon brought forth men, women and children to cheer and wave
God-speed to them; but as they passed farther from the vicinity of Torn,
where the black falcon wing was known more by the ferocity of its
name than by the kindly deeds of the great outlaw to the lowly of his
neighborhood, they saw only closed and barred doors with an oc