"Oh, come along, I know everything is perfectly quiet. Not a Norman astir, I will be bond for it. You will be useful, so come along."
"If you will take the responsibility, Badger."
"That I will readily, so come along."
Then the pair turned their horses' heads round, and joined Badger in his errand. As they sped across the moor they heard to the right of them a fierce baying; and presently some half-dozen wolves came bearing down upon them. The horses began to tremble in every limb, and show evidences of bolting. So the three dismounted, and stood at the horses' heads with Grizzly fiercely growling in front. This seemed to reassure the horses; but as the wolves drew near they were evidently mistaken in their prey, for they turned tail and fled. But Grizzly with a terrific growl dashed after them, throwing himself on the haunches of the hindmost, and rolling him over. Then, seizing him by the throat, he would speedily have made an end of him, if the horsemen had not come up and dispatched him with their swords. The monster turned out to be a large gaunt dog wolf, who would have been an ugly customer for an unarmed man to meet when the pinch of hunger was upon him.
"I hope they've got the sheep, and cattle, and swine all trim and tight, or I'm feared they'll be missing some of them in the morning, with these beasts prowling about," remarked one horseman.
"They're getting too plentiful to be at all pleasant. There's been little time for wolf-hunting since these Normans came; they are getting bold too, and are beginning to pack," remarked the second horseman.
"I wish they were the worst foes we had to deal with," said Badger; "I should be a happier man by a good deal. But these dastardly Normans, I fear me we shall never more shake them off. The villainous brood are swarming all over the land, and there will soon be never a patch of soil that a Saxon can call his own. We shall all either have to be slaves or feed on the wind ere long."
"Not me, Badger," said one. "I have neither child nor chick, and a freeman I'll be at all costs. The limestone caves and the greenwood shall make me shelter. As for feeding on air, I'll not want something more substantial if any Norman this side Baldley Heights or Whernside Fell has a sheep in the fold or an ox in the stall."
"Well, don't be downhearted, comrades," said Badger. "When the wind shifts, the cloud lifts. It's a broad ford that can't be bridged. The strongest bow soonest relaxes, and the spent arrow falls lightly. Our time will come, for these Normans are not Viking rovers, but like fat living, and that breeds laziness; and we shall be able to shake ourselves down comfortably if we can't push them out of the bed."
Whilst this conversation was proceeding the three were rapidly pressing on, Badger having by this time put eight or ten miles between himself and the Norman foe. But in the vast distance before them there seemed to loom an unending stretch of moorland, vast and drear and dark. In the pale moonlight the mists could be seen climbing the heights, or creeping lazily along the hollows, where damp and bogs abounded. Like huge repositories of old-world histories these grim old hills seemed—dwarfing human nature into nothingness in their presence—"everlasting hills," broad-based and firm; defying the storms of winter, and bathing their heads in the golden sunshine of summer; unmoved amid the changes, transformations, and fierce race struggles which were being fought out with relentless cruelty around their base; and offering a cold, unsympathetic shelter to fugitives flying to them for safety.