"
"Does my friend Dade doubt his Duke's skill at last?"
"Sir Duke,--Sir King I mean now, for King you are and deserve to be,--I
know what you can do. I remember how we took England at one blow on Senlac
field; but see you here, Sir King. How will you take an island where four
kings such as you (if the world would hold four such at once) could not
stop one churl from ploughing the land, or one bird-catcher from setting
lime-twigs?"
"And what if I cannot stop the bird-catchers? Do they expect to lime
Frenchmen as easily as sparrows?"
"Sparrows! It is not sparrows that I have been fattening on this last
month. I tell you, Sire, I have seen wild-fowl alone in that island enough
to feed them all the year round. I was there in the moulting-time, and saw
them take,--one day one hundred, one two hundred; and once, as I am a
belted knight, a thousand duck out of one single mere. There is a wood
there, with herons sprawling about the tree-tops,--I did not think there
were so many in the world,--and fish for Lent and Fridays in every puddle
and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every old-wife's table; while
the knights think scorn of anything worse than smelts and burbot."
"Splendeur Dex!" quoth William, who, Norman-like, did not dislike a good
dinner. "I must keep Lent in Ely before I die.
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