The whole company promised with one voice not to doubt it. The poem, indeed, which Master Pennewip thereupon proceeded to read, was of a kind which rendered doubt on that head very difficult; and I myself, though I have chosen Wouter as my hero, shall not find it easy to convince the reader that he was not so bad as would appear from his atrocious—
SONG OF THE BRIGAND.
“With my sword—
On my steed—
And my helmet on head,
Ride at them! The foeman’s skull cloven in twain,—
And forward!—”
“Christian souls!” cried the whole company, “is he mad?”
“And forward!—
And never draw rein