bells are talking of it. The French come to visit Hastings. I know for I
sailed through their fleet just after dawn."

"Is it so?" she asked quietly. "I feared worse. I feared lest the dream
meant that you had gone to join your brothers in the deep. Well, the
French are not here yet, as thank God you are. So eat and drink, for we
of England fight best on full bellies."

Again I obeyed who was very hungry after that long night and needed food
and ale, and as I swallowed them we heard the sound of folk shouting and
running.

"You are in haste, Hubert, to join the others on the quay and send
a Frenchman or two to hell with that big bow of yours?" she said
inquiringly.

"Nay," I answered, "I am in haste to get you out of this town, which I
fear may be burnt. There is a certain cave up yonder by the Minnes Rock
where I think you might lie safe, Mother."

"It has come down to me from my fathers, Hubert, that it was never the
fashion of the women of the north to keep their men to shield them when
duty called them otherwhere. I am helpless in my limbs and heavy, and
cannot climb, or be borne up yonder hill to any cave. Here I stop where
I have dwelt these five-and-forty years, to live or die as God pleases.
Get you to your duty, man. Stay. Call those wenches and bid them fly
inland to their folk, out Burwash way. They are young and fleet of foot,
and no Frenchman will catch them."

I summoned the girls who were staring, white-faced, from the attic