Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/147

 CHAPTER XXV. STEPHEN TELLS OF AN ADVENTURE IN THE CAMP OF THE FOEMEN.

HEREAFTER the Baron gathered his men again, and rode abroad divers times in the summer and autumn, and was now gotten warier, so that he gat no great overthrow. Yet was he often met by them of East Cheaping, and not seldom had the worse. Osberne and his were in the field as oft as any, and gave and took, but ever showed them valiant. Osberne was hurt twice, but not sorely; and ever he waxed in manhood, and was well accounted of by all men; and the Dalesmen began to be well known to them of Deepdale, and were a terror to them.

Thus wore summer and autumn, and Osberne saw no face of the hope of getting home to the Dale before spring. The winter came early, and was with much frost and snow, and they of East Cheaping kept them within their walls perforce, but they held the Yule-feast merrily and with good heart.

When winter was gone and the snow and the floods, and spring was come again, there began anew skirmishing and riding; and now one, now the other prevailed; and Osberne fell to learning all the feats of chivalry under Sir Medard. And in one fray he paid his master back for the learning, and somewhat more; for the Knight thrust