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Looking round him, he saw Mallet de Graville, who had remounted, and said, shortly: "Pardex, dear knight, we thought you already with St. Michael! joy, that you live yet to be an English earl. Look you, ride to Fitzosborne with the signal-word, 'Li Hardiz passent avant! Off, and quick." De Graville bowed, and darted across the plain.
Gay and debonnair, in the brisk fresh air of the frosty winter, the great Count jested and laughed as the squires fastened a live bird by the string to a stake in the distant sward; and "Pardex," said Duke William, "Conan of Bretagne, and Philip of France, leave us now so unkindly in peace, that I trow we shall never again have larger butt for our arrows than the breast of yon poor plumed trembler."
"That I have noted," said the knight, "for even at the smallest house at which I lodged in my way from London, the host hath courteously offered me the bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant; and to say truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, despite their uncouth hate of the foreigner; nor is their meat to be despised, plentiful and succulent; but pardex, as thou sayest, little helped by the art of dressing.
Gay and debonnair, in the brisk fresh air of the frosty winter, the great Count jested and laughed as the squires fastened a live bird by the string to a stake in the distant sward; and "Pardex," said Duke William, "Conan of Bretagne, and Philip of France, leave us now so unkindly in peace, that I trow we shall never again have larger butt for our arrows than the breast of yon poor plumed trembler."
"That I have noted," said the knight, "for even at the smallest house at which I lodged in my way from London, the host hath courteously offered me the bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant; and to say truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, despite their uncouth hate of the foreigner; nor is their meat to be despised, plentiful and succulent; but pardex, as thou sayest, little helped by the art of dressing.
Lost a moment amidst hostile ranks, save by the swift glitter of his short sword, he made, amidst all, a path for himself and his followers, and emerged from the heart of the steel unscathed and loud-breathing; while, round the line he had broken, wheeled and closed his wild men, striking, rushing, slaying, slain. "Pardex, this is war worth the sharing," said the knight.
"See," said De Graville, "how near yon lonely woman hath come to the tent of the Duke yea, to the foot of the holy gonfanon, which supplanted 'the Fighting Man! pardex, my heart bleeds to see her striving to lift up the heavy dead!" The monks neared the spot, and Osgood exclaimed in a voice almost joyful: "It is Edith the Fair! This way, the torches! hither, quick!"
Looking round him, he saw Mallet de Graville, who had remounted, and said, shortly: "Pardex, dear knight, we thought you already with St. Michael! joy, that you live yet to be an English earl. Look you, ride to Fitzosborne with the signal-word, 'Li Hardiz passent avant! Off, and quick." De Graville bowed, and darted across the plain.
Sooner or later, the very maneir he hath extorted from me shall give excuse for sword and lance, and then, pardex, thou shalt come and cross steel in thine own quarrel. How I rejoice that I can show to the beau frere of my dear cousin and seigneur some return for all the courtesies the English King and kingdom bestowed upon me!
"On foot!" said the knight, a little staggered, "Pardex! well and truly, I did not count upon that!" "Enough," said Harold, turning away in evident disappointment, "think of it no more." "Nay, by your leave, what I have once said I stand to," returned the knight; "albeit, you may as well cleave in two one of those respectable centaurs of which we have read in our youth, as part Norman and horse.
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