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And when I was a limber lad like yourself, I do think truly that once I might hae likit weel to hae been lot and part of siclike stir and hazard, and to see the bale-fires burn. "Bear with me a moment yet, and I'll have done. There is a hard question I would spier of you. I thought but ill of my kind in my younger days.

"But go through the kitchen, my dear messengers," said Andreas Hofer; "there is a bag of flour for each of you; take it on your back, and on passing during your march a rivulet or a mountain torrent, throw some of the flour into it; and wherever you find dry brushwood on the road, pile it up and kindle it, that the bale-fires may proclaim to the country, ''Tis time!"

Forsooth Ralph saw fire after fire break out to the westward; and the brother said: "And if we stood over the high altar and looked east, ye would see more of such fires and many more; and all these bales are piled up and lighted by vassals and villeins of my lord Abbot: now to-night they are but mere Midsummer bale-fires; but doubt ye not that if there came war into the land each one of these bales would mean at least a half-score of stout men, archers and men-at-arms, all ready to serve their lord at all adventure.

But how would it be if your hundred men and Norman set forth in the dark, and lay hid not very far from the St. Denis Gate? Then some while after the lighting of the bale-fires from the windmill, to be lit when the English set on, make straight for the gate, and cry, 'St.