e for it," said Astley with
a sneer. "Nay, you need not think to scare me by glaring at me, Sir
Robert, nor will your ill-pleasure change my thoughts. I have faced
fiercer eyes than thine, and I have not feared."

"Your speech, Sir James, is neither courteous nor good," said Knolles,
"and if I were a free man I would cram your words down your throat with
the point of my dagger. But I am here to lead these men in profit and
honor, not to quarrel with every fool who has not the wit to understand
how soldiers should be led. Can you not see that if I make attempts here
and there, as you would have me do, I shall have weakened my strength
before I come to that part where it can best be spent?"

"And where is that?" asked Percy. "'Fore God, Astley, it is in my mind
that we ride with one who knows more of war than you or I, and that we
would be wise to be guided by his rede. Tell us then what is in your
mind."

"Thirty miles from here," said Knolles, "there is, as I am told, a
fortalice named Ploermel, and within it is one Bambro', an Englishman,
with a good garrison. No great distance from him is the Castle of
Josselin where dwells Robert of Beaumanoir with a great following of
Bretons. It is my intention that we should join Bambro', and so be in
such strength that we may throw ourselves upon Josselin, and by taking
it become the masters of all mid-Brittany, and able to make head against
the Frenchmen in the south."

"Indeed I think that you can do no better," said Percy heartily, "and
I swear to you on jeopardy of my soul that I will stand by you in the
matter! I doubt not that when we come deep into their land they will
draw together and do what they may to make head against us; but up to
now I swear by all the saints of Lindisfarne that I should have seen
more war in a summer's day in Liddesdale or at the Forest of Jedburgh
than any that Brittany has shown us. But see, yonder horsemen are riding
in. They are our own hobblers, are they not? And who are these who are
lashed to their stirrups?"

A small troop of mounted bowmen had ridden out of an oak grove upon the
left of the road. They trotted up to where the three knights had halted.
Two wretched peasants whose wrists had been tied to their leathers
came leaping and straining beside the horses in their effort not to be
dragged off their feet. One was a tall, gaunt, yellow-haired man, the
other short and swarthy, but both so crusted with dirt, so matted and
tangled a