“I wish I had met you in better company. But friends we are, and friends must be.” And he dismounted, and did his best for the wounded man, promising to return and fetch him off before night, or send yeomen to do so. As he pushed on through the wood, the Abbot began to see signs of a fight; riderless horses crashing through the copse, wounded men straggling back, to be cut down without mercy by the English. The war had been “_à l’outrance_” for a long while. None gave or asked quarter. The knights might be kept for ransom: they had money. The wretched men of the lower classes, who had none, were slain: as they would have slain the English. Soon they heard the noise of battle; and saw horsemen and footmen pell-mell, tangled in an abattis, from behind which archers and cross-bowmen shot them down in safety. Hereward dashed forward, with the shout of Torfrida; and at that the French, taken in the flank, fled, and were smitten as they fled, hip and thigh. Hereward bade them spare a fugitive, and bring him to him. “I give you your life; so run, and carry my message. That is Taillebois’s banner there forward, is it not?” “Yes.” “Then go after him, and tell him,--Hereward has the Abbot of Burgh, and half a dozen knights, safe by the heels. And unless Ivo clears the wood of his men by nightfall, I will hang every one of them up for the crows before morning.” Ivo got the message, and having had enough fighting for the day, drew off, says the chronicler, for the sake of the Abbot and his fellow-captives. Two hours after the Abbot and the other prisoners were sitting, unbound, but unarmed, in the forest encampment, waiting for a right good meal, with Torfrida bustling about them, after binding up the very few wounded among their own men. Every courtesy was shown them; and their hearts were lifted up, as they beheld approaching among the trees great caldrons of good soup; forest salads; red deer and roe roasted on the wood embers; spits of pheasants and partridges, larks and buntings, thrust off one by one by fair hands into the burdock leaves which served as platters; and last, but not least, jacks of ale and wine, appearing mysteriously from a cool old stone quarry. Abbot Thorold ate to his heart’s content, complimented every one, vowed he would forswear all Norman cooks and take to the greenwood himself, and was as gracious and courtly as if he had been at the new palace at Winchester. And all the more for this reason,--that he had intended to overawe the English barbarians by his polished Norman manners. He found those of Hereward and Torfrida, at least, as polished as his own. “I am glad you are content, Lord Abbot,” said Torfrida; “I trust you prefer dining with me to burning me, as you meant to do.”