How to dislodge those six fellows
without six times their number, I do not see. It is well to recollect
that."
And so he did; and turned to use again and again, in after years, the
strategetic capabilities of an old-fashioned English farm.
Hereward spurred his horse up to the nearest gate, and was instantly
confronted by a little fair-haired man, as broad as he was tall, who
heaved up a long "twybill," or double axe, and bade him, across the gate,
go to a certain place.
"Little Winter, little Winter, my chuck, my darling, my mad fellow, my
brother-in-arms, my brother in robbery and murder, are you grown so honest
in your old age that you will not know Hereward the wolfs-head?"
"Hereward!" shrieked the doughty little man. "I took you for an accursed
Norman in those outlandish clothes;" and lifting up no little voice, he
shouted,--
"Hereward is back, and Martin Lightfoot at his heels!"
The gate was thrown open, and Hereward all but pulled off his horse. He
was clapped on the back, turned round and round, admired from head to
foot, shouted at by old companions of his boyhood, naughty young
housecarles of his old troop, now settled down into honest thriving
yeomen, hard working and hard fighting, who had heard again and again,
with pride, of his doughty doings over sea.
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