Then the fog closed down again, and in it we slipped through the French fleet.
It may have been the best part of an hour later that we reached Hastings. Before the boat was made fast to the jetty, I sprang to it shouting:
“Stir! stir! the French are upon you! To arms! We have slipped through a whole fleet of them in the mist.”
Instantly the sleepy quay seemed to awaken. From the neighbouring fish market, from everywhere sailormen and others came running, followed by children with gaping mouths, while from the doors of houses far away shot women with scared faces, like ferreted rabbits from their burrows. In a minute the crowd had surrounded me, all asking questions at once in such a fashion that I could only answer them with my cry of:
“Stir! the French are upon you. To arms, I say. To arms!”
Presently through the throng advanced an old white-bearded man who wore a badge of office, crying as he came, “Make way for the bailiff!”
The crowd obeyed, opening a path, and soon we were face to face.
“What is it, Hubert of Hastings?” he asked. “Is there fire that you shout so loudly?”
“Aye, Worship,” I answered. “Fire and murder and all the gifts that the French have for England. The Fleet of France is beating up for Hastings, fifty sail of them or more. We crept through them in the fog, for the wind which would scarce move them served our turn and beyond an arrow or two, they took no note of a fishing-boat.”
“Whence come they?” asked the bailiff, bewildered.