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The Hollow Land by William Morris
page 22 of 52 (42%)
There were five hundred of us; two hundred spears, the rest archers;
and both archers and men at arms were picked men.

"How many of them are we to expect?" said I. "Not under a thousand,
certainly, probably more, Sir Florian." (My brother Arnald, by the
way, had knighted me before we left the good town, and Hugh liked to
give me the handle to my name. How was it, by the way, that no one had
ever made him a knight?)

"Let every one look to his arms and horse, and come away from these
silly cows' sons!" shouted Arnald.

Hugh said, "They will be here in an hour, fair Sir."

So 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
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