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"Ha!" quoth Giles, "they work apace yonder, and by Saint Giles they lack not for engines; verily Black Ivo is a master of siege tactics but so is Giles, brother! See where he setteth up his mangonels, trebuchets, perriers and balistae, with bossons or rams, towers and cats, in the use of the which he is right cunning but so also is Giles, brother!
Day in, day out, mangonel, trebuchet and balista whirred and crashed from keep and tower and curtain-wall, while from every loophole and crenelle long-bows twanged and arrows flew; yet with each succeeding dawn the besiegers' fence-works crept nearer, closing in upon the city until, within close bowshot of the walls, they set up earthworks and stockades and from these strong barriers plied the defenders with cloth-yard shaft and cross-bow bolt what time their mighty engines advanced, perriers and rams wherewith to batter and breach the city's massy walls.
Slings, bases, sakers, port-pieces, and fowlers belonged to this class. III. Perriers, from 6 to 8 caliber, firing stone-balls, shells, fire-balls, etc. IV. Mortars, of 1.5 caliber, including petards and murderers. The "great ordnance," or cannon, were muzzle-loading.
A hundred times better this squalid, wretched, foreign school, than the degradation of heart and soul I had suffered with him. I could do no more for Minima than for myself, for I dared not even write to Mrs. Wilkinson, who was either an accomplice or a dupe of these Perriers.
"Now mark yon tower," said Sir Benedict, closing his vizor, "here shall be good sport for Eric's perriers watch now!" and he nodded where on the battlement below, crouched Eric with Walkyn and Roger who laboured at the winches of a great trebuchet hard by.
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