in time
to avoid the troop of horsemen from the ambush, who were bearing down
at full speed toward the spot, and were now just at hand.

The gates of the town were closed, and the drawbridge was taken up the
moment that Bernard had entered, so that he could not be pursued. The
horsemen, therefore, had nothing to do but to bear away their wounded
commander to the nearest castle which was in their possession. The
next day he died.

* * * * *

While the barons and knights were thus amusing themselves at the
beginning of Richard's reign with fighting for castles and provinces,
either for the pleasure of fighting, or for the sake of the renown or
the plunder which they acquired when they were fortunate enough to
gain the victory, the great mass of the people of England were taxed
and oppressed by their haughty masters to an extent almost incredible.
The higher nobles were absolutely above all law. One of them, who was
going to set off on a naval expedition into France, seized, in the
English sea-port which he was leaving, a number of women, the wives
and daughters of the citizens, and took them on board his ship, to be
at the disposal there of himself and his fellow grandees. For this
intolerable injury the husbands and fathers had absolutely no remedy.
To crown the wickedness of this deed, when, soon after the fleet had
left the port, a storm arose, and the women were terrified at the
danger they were in, and their fright, added to the distress they felt
at being thus torn away from their families and homes, made them
completely and uncontrollably wretched, the merciless nobles threw
them overboard to stop their cries.

Taxes were assessed, too, at this time, upon all the people of the
kingdom, that were of an extremely onerous character. These taxes were
_farmed_, as the phrase is; that is, the right to collect them was
sold to contractors, called farmers of the revenue, who paid a certain
sum outright to the government, and then were entitled to all that
they could collect of the tax. Thus there was no supervision over them
in their exactions, for the government, being already paid, cared for
nothing more. The consequence was, that the tax-gatherers, who were
employed by the contractors, treated the people in the most oppressive
and extortionate manner. If the people made complaints, the government
would not listen to them, for fear that if they interfered with the
tax-gatherers in col