a mare's son may come in on us without espial. Now make we our
friends welcome. Forsooth, I looked for them an hour later; and had
they come an hour earlier yet, some heads would now lie on the cold
grass which shall lie on a feather bed to-night. But let be, since
all is well!

"Now get we home to our houses, and eat and drink and slumber this
night, if never once again, amid the multitude of friends and fellows;
and yet soberly and without riot, since so much work is to hand.
Moreover the priest saith, bear ye the dead men, both friends and
foes, into the chancel of the church, and there this night he will
wake them: but after to-morrow let the dead abide to bury their dead!"

Therewith he leapt down from the cross, and Will and I bestirred
ourselves and mingled with the new-comers. They were some three
hundred strong, clad and armed in all ways like the people of our
township, except some half-dozen whose armour shone cold like ice
under the moonbeams. Will Green soon had a dozen of them by the
sleeve to come home with him to board and bed, and then I lost him for
some minutes, and turning about saw John Ball standing behind me,
looking pensively on all the stir and merry humours of the joyous
uplanders.

"Brother from Essex," said he, "shall I see thee again to-night? I
were fain of speech with thee; for thou seemest like one that has seen
more than most."

"Yea," said I, "if ye come to Will Green's house, for thither am I
bidden."