“God speed thy bolt, good Marvin. An thou dost that, ’twill be as loyal a service as e’er them did’st the House of Mountjoy. His band would not linger long to annoy us, I think. And that cottage and half dozen acres by the mill shall be thine in fee simple.” “Lady Mountjoy,” he said, with another bow, “I have served my Lord of Mountjoy and his father before him for fifty years. Your bounty is ever welcome, but, with it or without, I serve while I live. But hold! there’s the Gray Wolf again, looking our way with hungry eyes,—” He took long and careful aim, while I who had often seen him bring down a running hare at a greater distance, watched him with halted breath. But Fortune smiled not on him. A gust of wind came just as he drew trigger, and turned his bolt enough in the hundred and fifty yards of its flight to make it pass harmlessly to one side of our enemy. Old Marvin made a bitter groan at this bad hap, and stood looking at the knight with grinding teeth. “Better luck and a quieter air next time, good Marvin,” quoth mother, “thou’lt wing him yet, be sure.” And she passed to another embrasure to greet old Alan, the armorer, who was busy with carrying fresh supplies of bolts to the archers. At two o’ the clock a cry came down from our lookouts that reënforcements were coming for our enemies. My mother and I hurried to the battlements and from there descried a motley array of a hundred or more men-at-arms, archers and peasants with axes and spades, tramping along the road from Teramore. For a moment we were frightened at what we saw. Here was proof indeed that the Old Wolf meant no hurried foray but an attack in such force as might be expected to gain the castle and the lands of Mountjoy. Most of its proper defenders were far away, marching with other loyal men under the banner of the King; and now it was clear that Carleton had let no man go forward from all his lands, reserving all for this treacherous blow. Armored knights could not swim the moat or climb up its steep sides; but the Carleton force was now twenty times greater than ours, and the Gray Wolf was well skilled in all the arts of attack.