Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/246

 cried out: Ye thorpe-dwellers, look to quenching the fires, while we slay you these wolf-swine. Thereon the countrymen began to run together with buckets wherever the riders were before them. And there was a pretty stream running down the midmost of the street, and though it were dyed with blood that day, it was no worse for the quenching of the flames. Meanwhile Sir Godrick and his set themselves to the work, and it was not right perilous, for the thieves were all about scattermeal in twos and threes, and most afoot robbing and murdering and fire-raising, so that they made but such defence, when they made any, as the rat makes to the terrier. Shortly to say it, in half an hour there was not one of them left alive, save some few who gat to their horses and fled, having cast away their weapons and armour. Then the riders turned to help the thorpe-dwellers in quenching their fires, and in some two hours they had got all under wherein was any hope, and the rest they must let burn away.

Then would Sir Godrick have gone his ways, but the poor folk of the thorpe prayed him so piteously to abide till the morrow that he had no heart to nay-say them. So they brought him and his what things they might get together after the ravage, and begrudged them nought. Moreover in the morning five stout fellows of the younger sort prayed him to take them with him to serve him in war, since they knew not now how to live; so he yea-said them, nothing loth,