“A dozen lusty swordsmen—men still young and light on the feet and with heads to understand a stratagem. Dickon and John o’ the Wallfield and Elbert the Smith are the right sort. See that every man wears beneath his outer garment a coat of linked mail and carries a sword no longer than his arm. Within the hour I will meet thee at the beech wood thou knowest to the south of the town; and will bring a like number of the men of Grimsby. We shall ride hard and far; so look to it, I pray thee, that thy men be well mounted. We may have cause for speed on the homeward road.” An hour later, with four and twenty proper men, Cedric and I rode out of the beech wood, and took the high road toward the south, where, but five or six leagues away, the castles and most of the towns were still in the hands of the King’s mercenaries. I knew full well that the quest on which we were embarked was one that meant our cause’s advancement, and would have willingly trusted Cedric for the rest; but now we drew ahead of our horsemen, and he explained full clearly his design. ’Twas such a plan as only Cedric would have formed, and its outcome in truth, exceeding dubious; but we were comrades of old in many a venture that would have been refused by prudent men; and now he had no labor in convincing me that this was worth the trial. After an hour’s riding, we came to a thick wood, and turned aside in this into a little glade where we halted to rest our mounts and to bring about a most surprising change in our appareling. At a word from Cedric, each of the Grimsby men proceeded to withdraw from his saddle bags some garments which, being unfolded, appeared as the long gray cloaks and hoods of palmers. Each, it seemed, had brought a costume for himself and for one of the Mountjoy men; and now, in less time than the telling takes, we had all laid aside among the bracken any headwear or other dress that might not properly consort with these, and stood forth as a body of pilgrims in the dress that marked those who had accomplished the toilsome journey to the Holy Land. Soon we were on the road again, and, save for now and again the rattle of a sword hilt or a robust, laughing word, might not have been distinguished from a cavalcade of devout returning pilgrims such as were not uncommon on our roads. Without mishap we pursued our way into a region where all the points of vantage were held by our enemies; and where armed parties, far too strong for our gainsaying, patrolled the roads or watched them from the hilltops. In the late afternoon we came within sight of the Castle of Moberley which was held for the King by Sir John Champney with a hundred lances and six score cross-bowmen.