"Better that than the blood of us all," responded the man. "We are few. Would the young lord were here with his men-at-arms!"
"He rode to the north the morn," she was told. "Only four were with him. The rest are far away with the earl. A summons came, telling that the Scots were over the border."
"Could not the north counties care for themselves, without calling on the midlands?" grumbled the woman.
At that moment there came a terrified shriek from the road-gap in the palisades. The last of several wains was passing in, and all the street was thronged with cattle.
"They come! They come!" screamed the women by that wain. "Oh, that they gat so nigh, and none to see! It's over with us the day! Yon is the Club, and his men are many!"
Partly mounted, but some of them on foot, a wild-looking throng of men came pouring across a stubble-field from the southward. It seemed as if they might be over a hundred strong. No marching order was observed. There was no uniformity in their arms. At the head of them strode a huge, black-haired, shaggy-bearded brute who bore a tremendous club of oak, bound at its heavier end with a thick ring of iron. He laughed and shouted as he came, as if with a savage pleasure over the wild deeds he had done and the prospect before him.
"Short work!" he roared to those behind him. "Burn all ye can not take. And then for the hills o' Wales! But we'll harry as we go!"
Other things he said that sounded as if he had an especial grudge against the king and against all who, like the Nevilles, had been his strong personal adherents.