The English swore, and declared that they had never thought of that.
“No. We drink too much ale this side of the Channel, to think of that,—or of anything beside.”
“But,” said Leofwin Prat, “if we have no artillery, we can make some.”
“Spoken like yourself, good comrade. If we only knew how.”
“I know,” said Torfrida. “I have read of such things in books of the ancients, and I have watched them making continually,—I little knew why, or that I should ever turn engineer.”
“What is there that you do not know?” cried they all at once. And Torfrida actually showed herself a fair practical engineer.
But where was iron to come from? Iron for catapult springs, iron for ram heads, iron for bolts and bars?
“Torfrida,” said Hereward, “you are wise. Can you use the divining-rod?
“Why, my knight?”
“Because there might be iron ore in the wolds; and if you could find it by the rod, we might get it up and smelt it.”