Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/141

 space betwixt the narrows, three hundreds of men at least. They were armed and mounted as well as might be, but kept not very good order. When the first of them came to the place where the marsh-lurkers had been, they found lying athwart the causeway, one on each side, two dead porkers, two dead dogs, two hares, and in the very midst a fox, these also dead. The first men wonder at this, and get off their horses and handle the carcasses; then they call others to look at them; and some deem this the work of Dwarfs or Fairies or such like; and others say this is a sign or token of the up-country folk to rise upon them, and that they had best send men a-foot to search the marsh; and others that they should send tidings to the rearward folk. And some say one thing, some another, and all the while their fellows are thronging into the wide place till they are all crowded together, and not a third part of them know what has befallen, and deem that something has gone amiss; and the rearward fall to drawing their swords and crying out: To it, to it! Slay, slay! Deepdale, Deepdale! till scarce a man knew his right hand from his left.

But amidst all this turmoil a great voice, and it was Stephen the Eater, cried out from the marsh at the right hand: Go back, ye swine, to Deepdale. Then another sang out from the north: If ye can, ye dead dogs. Then Stephen again: This time ye must run like hares. Learn lore of the fox next time, if ye can, cried the northern voice. And even therewith was the