“A king of words! What care I, or you, as long as the Mamzer, God bless him! is a king of deeds?” “They have done their deeds, though, too. Gospatrick and Marlesweyn are back out of Scotland. They attacked Robert de Comines [Footnote: Ancestor of the Comyns of Scotland.] at Durham, and burnt him in his own house. There was but one of his men got out of Durham to tell the news. And now they have marched on York; and all the chiefs, they say, have joined them,--Archill the Thane, and Edwin and Morcar, and Waltheof too, the young traitors.” “Blessed Virgin!” cried Ivo, “thou art indeed gracious to thy most unworthy knight!” “What do you mean?” “You will see some day. Now, I will tell you but one word. When fools make hay, wise men can build ricks. This rebellion,--if it had not come of itself, I would have roused it. We wanted it, to cure William of this just and benevolent policy of his, which would have ended in sending us back to France as poor as we left it. Now, what am I expected to do? What says Gilbert of Ghent, the wise man of Lic--nic--what the pest do you call that outlandish place, which no civilized lips can pronounce?” “Lic-nic-cole?” replied Ascelin, who, like the rest of the French, never could manage to say Lincoln. “He says, ‘March to me, and with me to join the king at York.’” “Then he says well. These fat acres will be none the leaner, if I leave the English slaves to crop them for six months. Men! arm and horse Sir Robert of Deeping. Then arm and horse yourselves. We march north in half an hour, bag and baggage, scrip and scrippage. You are all bachelors, like me, and travel light. So off with you!--Sir Ascelin, you will eat and drink?” “That will I.” “Quick, then, butler! and after that pack up the Englishman’s plate-chest, which we inherited by right of fist,--the only plate and the only title-deeds I ever possessed.” “Now, Sir Ascelin,”--as the three knights, the lady, and the poor children ate their fastest,--“listen to me. The art of war lies in this one nutshell,--to put the greatest number of men into one place at one time, and let all other places shift. To strike swiftly, and strike heavily. That is the rule of our liege lord, King William; and by it he will conquer England, or the world, if he will; and while he does that, he shall never say that Ivo Taillebois stayed at home to guard his own manors while he could join his king, and win all the manors of England once and for all.” “Pardieu! whatever men may say of thy lineage or thy virtues, they cannot deny this,--that thou art a most wise and valiant captain.” “That am I,” quoth Taillebois, too much pleased with the praise to care about being _tutoyé_ by younger men. “As for my lineage, my lord the king has a fellow-feeling for upstarts; and the woodman’s grandson may very well serve the tanner’s. Now, men! is the litter ready for the lady and children? I am sorry to rattle you about thus, madame, but war has no courtesies; and march I must.”