Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/245

 praying for help, young men and old, women and children; and after them came howling and smiting men-at-arms in wild armour, and though they were not in all ways like to those with whom the Dalesmen had fought by the Sundering Flood, yet somehow they called those wretches to Osberne's remembrance, and he knew at once what had befallen, and wrath flamed up in his heart, for it well-nigh seemed to him as if Elfhild must have been borne off again. And he unknit the peace-strings from about Board-cleaver, and drew him forth, so that a clear humming noise went forth into the sunlit air, and spurred on so hard that he outwent every man there.

But when the Skimmers saw those riders coming on, they stayed the chase, and some few tarried while they shot from their short-bows, which did but little harm, and so they hustled back into the thorpe; and some few, the first of them, gat through and off into the fields; but the fleers drew aside to the right hand and the left, calling blessings on the good Knight and his, and, when the torrent of them was past, followed after timidly toward their wasted dwelling. And as Sir Godrick and his came within the thorpe they found a many of the Skimmers there (two hundreds of their carcasses were buried afterwards), and all about by the houses lay mangled bodies of the country-folk, some few with weapons in their hands, but more of women and children. But when Godrick and his had slain the first plump that they had driven in from the road, the Knight