The day was waning now. The fog hung heavy on the treetops, and dripped upon their heads. The horses were getting tired, and slipped and stumbled in the deep clay paths. The footmen were more tired still, and, cold and hungry, straggled more and more. The horse-tracks led over an open lawn of grass and fern, with here and there an ancient thorn, and round it on three sides thick wood of oak and beech, with under copse of holly and hazel. Into that wood the horse-tracks led, by a path on which there was but room for one horse at a time. “Here they are at last!” cried Ivo. “I see the fresh footmarks of men, as well as horses. Push on, knights and men at-arms.” The Abbot looked at the dark, dripping wood, and meditated. “I think that it will be as well for some of us to remain here; and, spreading our men along the woodside, prevent the escape of the villains. _A moi, hommes d’armes!_” “As you like. I will go in and bolt the rabbit; and you shall snap him up as he comes out.” And Ivo, who was as brave as a bull-dog, thrust his horse into the path, while the Abbot sat shivering outside. “Certain nobles of higher rank,” says Peter de Blois, “followed his example, not wishing to rust their armor, or tear their fine clothes, in the dank copse.” The knights and men-at-arms straggled slowly into the forest, some by the path, some elsewhere, grumbling audibly at the black work before them. At last the crashing of the branches died away, and all was still. Abbot Thorold sat there upon his shivering horse, shivering himself as the cold pierced through his wet mail; and as near an hour past, and no sign of foe or friend appeared, he cursed the hour in which he took off the beautiful garments of the sanctuary to endure those of the battle-field. He thought of a warm chamber, warm bath, warm footcloths, warm pheasant, and warm wine. He kicked his freezing iron feet in the freezing iron stirrup. He tried to blow his nose with his freezing iron hand; but dropt his handkerchief into the mud, and his horse trod on it. He tried to warble the song of Roland; but the words exploded in a cough and a sneeze. And so dragged on the weary hours, says the chronicler, nearly all day, till the ninth hour. But never did they see coming out of the forest the men who had gone in. A shout from his nephew, Sir Ascelin, made all turn their heads. Behind them, on the open lawn, in the throat between the woods by which they had entered, were some forty knights, galloping toward them. “Ivo?” “No!” almost shrieked the Abbot. “There is the white-bear banner. It is Hereward.” “There is Winter on his left,” cried one. “And there, with the standard, is the accursed monk, Ranald of Ramsey.” And on they came, having debouched from the wood some two hundred yards off, behind a roll in the lawn, just far enough off to charge as soon as they were in line.