The Hollow Land | Page 9

we got clear of the cattle, and dismounted, and both ourselves took
food and drink, and our horses; afterwards we tightened our
saddle-girths, shook our great pots of helmets on, except Amald, whose
rustyred hair had been his only head-piece in battle for years and years,
and stood with our spears close by our horses, leaving room for the
archers to retreat between our ranks; and they got their arrows ready,
and planted their stakes before a little peat moss: and there we waited,
and saw their pennons at last floating high above the corn of the fertile
land, then heard their many horse-hoofs ring upon the hard-parched
moor, and the archers began to shoot.

It had been a strange battle; we had never fought better, and yet withal
it had ended in a retreat; indeed all along every man but Arnald and
myself, even Hugh, had been trying at least to get the enemy between
him and the way toward the pass; and now we were all drifting that
way, the enemy trying to cut us off, but never able to stop us, because
he could only throw small bodies of men in our way, whom we
scattered and put to flight in their turn.
I never cared less for my life than then; indeed, in spite of all my
boasting and hardness of belief, I should have been happy to have died,
such a strange weight of apprehension was on me; and yet I got no
scratch even. I had soon put off my great helm, and was fighting in my
mail-coif only: and here I swear that three knights together charged me,
aiming at my bare face, yet never touched me. For, as for one, I put his
lance aside with my sword, and the other two in some most wonderful
manner got their spears locked in each other's armour, and so had to
submit to be knocked off their horses.
And we still neared the pass, and began to see distinctly the ferns that
grew on the rocks, and the fair country between the rift in them,
spreading out there, blue-shadowed. Whereupon came a great rush of
men of both sides, striking side blows at each other, spitting, cursing,
and shrieking, as they tore away like a herd of wild hogs. So, being
careless of lfe, as I said, I drew rein, and turning my horse, waited
quietly for them. And I knotted the reins, and laid them on the horse's
neck, and stroked him, that he whinnied, then got both my hands to my
sword.
Then, as they came on, I noted hurriedly that the first man was one of
Arnald's men, and one of our men behind him leaned forward to prod
him with his spear, but could not reach so far, till he himself was run
through the eye with a spear, and throwing his arms up fell dead with a
shriek. Also I noted concerning this first man that the laces of his
helmet were loose, and when he saw me he lifted his left hand to his
head, took off his helm and cast it at me, and still tore on; the helmet
flew over my head, and I sitting still there, swung out, hitting him on
the neck; his head flew right off, for the mail no more held than a piece
of silk. "Mary rings," and my horse whinnied again, and we both of us
went at it, and fairly stopped that rout, so that there was a knot of quite
close and desperate fighting, wherein we had the best of that fight and

slew most of them, albeit my horse was slain and my mail-coif cut
through. Then I bade a squire fetch me another horse, and began
meanwhile to upbraid those knights for running in such a strange
disorderly race, instead of standing and fighting cleverly. Moreover we
had drifted even in this successful fight still nearer to the pass, so that
the conies who dwelt there were beginning to consider whether they
should not run into their holes.
But one of those knights said: "Be not angry with me. Sir Florian, but
do you think you will go to Heaven?"
"The saints! I hope so," I said, but one who stood near him whispered
to him to hold his peace, so I cried out: "0 friend! I hold this world and
all therein so cheap now, that I see not anything in it but shame which
can any longer anger me; wherefore speak: out."
"Then, Sir Florian, men say that at your christening some fiend took on
him the likeness of a priest and strove to baptize you in the Devil's
name, but God had mercy on you so that the fiend could not choose but
baptize you