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There he placed the treasures in one glittering heap; and he clothed himself in a wondrous mail-coat of gold that was found among them, and he put on the Helmet of Dread, which had once been the terror of the mid-world, and the like of which no man had ever seen; and then he gazed with greedy eyes upon the fateful ring, until he, too, was changed into a cold and slimy reptile, a monster dragon.
He could find nothing ominous in that hunched figure, save its mail-coat and steel helm. Yet the face was peculiar. Over a drooping mustache of black flared forth two intense black eyes. Brian noted this, and the thin, curved nose and prominent chin, and laughed again. "Who is this Dark Master, Turlough?" The other shivered slightly.
Maister Gawin had no mail-coat, and would not fight; but he must have kept an eye upon his natural foe through the fray, and it would be strange if he had not some pleasure in perceiving the rochet, which Beatoun must have donned hastily to save himself, pulled over his head by rude hands in scorn of the priestly pretence and some satisfaction in interposing to preserve the "consecreat bishop," whose behaviour was so little saintly.
"She gazed down the line of the yew-trees, and watched how, as he went for the most part with a firm step, he yet shrank somewhat from the shadows of the yews; his long brown hair flowing downward, swayed with him as he walked; and the golden threads interwoven with it, as the fashion was with the warriors in those days, sparkled out from among it now and then; and the faint, far-off moonlight lit up the waves of his mail-coat; he walked fast, and was disappearing in the shadows of the trees near the moat, but turned before he was quite lost in them, and waved his ungauntletted hand; then she heard the challenge of the warder, the falling of the drawbridge, the swing of the heavy wicket-gate on its hinges; and, into the brightening lights, and deepening shadows of the moonlight he went from her sight; and she left the porch and went to the chapel, all that night praying earnestly there.
So she sees that the game goeth sorely against her brethren, and she gathers to her great stoutness of heart, and does on her a mail-coat and takes to her a sword, and fights by her brethren, and goes as far forward as the bravest of man-folk: and all spoke in one wise that never saw any fairer defence than in her.
He who boasts loud and with big words challenges other men to battle, is bound to be venturous and act up to his words, that his deed may avouch his vaunt. But stay till I am armed and have girded on the dread attire of war. "And now I tie my sword to my side, now first I get my body guarded with mail-coat and headpiece, the helm keeping my brows and the stout iron shrouding my breast.
I HAVE heard that swiftly the son of Weohstan at wish and word of his wounded king, war-sick warrior, woven mail-coat, battle-sark, bore 'neath the barrow's roof. Such wealth of gold, booty from barrow, can burden with pride each human wight: let him hide it who will!
Did you don the mail-coat of the warrior, or the white robe of the priest? Did you till the ground, and live on garlic; or were you owner of a princely estate, and wont to sit on your house-top of evenings, enjoying the delicious twilight, and the soft flow of the Nile? Come now, tell me all. The door of a departed world seemed about to open.
Therefore, with a sharp, stiff, strong, and well-steeled lance would he usually force up a door, pierce a harness, beat down a tree, carry away the ring, lift up a cuirassier saddle, with the mail-coat and gauntlet. All this he did in complete arms from head to foot.
Was I, squire of the body to Count Stephen Mauleverer for twenty years, and do I not know the tramp of a war-horse, or the clash of a mail-coat? But call the men to the walls at any rate, and have me the best drawn up at the base-court we may help them by a sally." "That will not be rashly undertaken with my consent," murmured the Fleming; "but to the wall if you will, and 111 good time.