"How now, sir page," said he, "must we teach you manners?"
I was nigh weeping for shame that he should so best me, yet I had no other weapon, and they were three men, and I but a lad.
They dismounted, and pulled me from my horse, and holding me flat on the ground with his knee, one of them began to rifle me. "The abbot's letter," I thought, and in a moment I gave tongue.
"Look you, good sirs," I said, "take my money. You are welcome to it, but let me go forward on my road."
"Wherefore such haste?" said one. "Thy money we will take, and thy sorrel hack, but there is a letter still on thee we require to be found yet!"
It was plain they were no highwaymen, but in some sort the Sarrasin's men, even here in Normandy, and a great terror took me of his power. In a frenzy I escaped from them a moment, and stood clutching madly my breast, where the letter lay hid.
They made a rush for me together, and though like a young tiger I struggled with scratch and bite and kick, they had me down again.
"Alas!" I thought, "die then of famine, poor brethren of the Vale."
One of them thrust his hand under my riding-tunic, and had the parchment in his very palm. And all seemed over with me and my mission, when suddenly I heard the sound of horses' hoofs coming nearer, and I shrieked out "Help!" My enemy stuffed his cap into my throat to stop my cries.
But they had been heard, and they came closer at a gallop. "More villains," I thought, "to make certain of my capture."