n bade any man who would put forth another
name. No man spake for a little while, till at last Surly John pushes
forth to the front and says: "I name Erling Thomasson, a good man and
true!" Brake forth then great laughter and whooping, for the said
Erling was a manifest niggard, a dastard who sweated in his bed when
the mouse squeaked in the wall a nighttime. But one man sang out:
"Yea, Lawman, and I name Surly John." Thereat was great laughter, and
men shoved John to and fro till they had hustled him out to the skirts
of the throng, and there bid him go a wolf-hunting.

But now the Lawman takes Osberne by the hand and leads him to the edge
of the knoll, and stands there and says: "Men of the Dale, ye would go
to the war; ye would take a captain to you; ye would have Osberne
Wulfgrimsson for your captain. All this ye have done uncompelled, of
your own will; therefore take not the rue if it not turn out so well
as ye looked for. But now I bid all them that be going on this journey
to lift up their right hands and swear to be leal and true to your
captain, Osberne Wulfgrimsson, in all things for life or for death."

Even so they did with a hearty good will: thereupon Osberne spake and
said, after he had a word with [the Knight] Sir Medard, apart: "All ye
my men, I have but this to say to you: I hold you trusty and valiant,
and men unlike to fight soft. But this I know of you, as of all other
of us Dalesmen, that ye are most wont to go each after his own will,
and it is well-nigh enough to put a man off from doing a thing if
another man say to him, Do it. Now this manner ye must change, since
ye are become men-at-arms, and if I bid you go to the right or the
left, ye need think of nought but which is your right hand and which
the left; though forsooth I wot well that some of ye be so perverse
that even that debate may lead you into trouble and contention. Now
look to it that ye may not all be captains, and they that try it, so
long as I be over you, are like to wend into wild weather. Now
stouthearts, and my friends, it is now a little past high noon; and we
shall abide here no longer than tomorrow morn, and at daybreak we
shall be on our way to Eastcheaping, wherefore that time have yet got
to see to your weapons and array, and to say farewell, such of you as
be not too far off, to your kindred and wives and sweethearts. And now
let all we do our best when we come among the edges, so that hereafter
one man may say to ano