and stumbling over his own drapery before, fell suddenly prostrate
in the door-way that connected the chapel with the abbey,
and was instantaneously buried under a pyramid of ghostly carcasses,
that fell over him and each other, and lay a rolling chaos of
animated rotundities, sprawling and bawling in unseemly disarray,
and sending forth the names of all the saints in and out of heaven,
amidst the clashing of swords, the ringing of bucklers, the clattering
of helmets, the twanging of bow-strings, the whizzing of arrows,
the screams of women, the shouts of the warriors, and the vociferations
of the peasantry, who had been assembled to the intended nuptials,
and who, seeing a fair set-to, contrived to pick a quarrel among
themselves on the occasion, and proceeded, with staff and cudgel,
to crack each other's skulls for the good of the king and the earl.
One tall friar alone was untouched by the panic of his brethren,
and stood steadfastly watching the combat with his arms a-kembo,
the colossal emblem of an unarmed neutrality.

At length, through the midst of the internal confusion, the earl,
by the help of his good sword, the staunch valour of his men,
and the blessing of the Virgin, fought his way to the chapel-gate--
his bowmen closed him in--he vaulted into his saddle, clapped spurs to
his horse, rallied his men on the first eminence, and exchanged his sword
for a bow and arrow, with which he did old execution among the pursuers,
who at last thought it most expedient to desist from offensive warfare,
and to retreat into the abbey, where, in the king's name, they broached
a pipe of the best wine, and attached all the venison in the larder,
having first carefully unpacked the tuft of friars, and set the fallen
abbot on his legs.

The friars, it may be well supposed, and such of the king's men