"Down with the posts and planks! Quick--Quick!" cried Roland, through his helmet. "Close your ranks, and now again to your arquebuses! Fire, and club them! Club them, and on--on, for Vipont and the King!" This rude substitute for a bridge was laid, and the ditch crossed, in less time than we have taken to relate it. Shoulder to shoulder, in the gap of the gate and drawbridge, stood a close array of pikemen; but, being somewhat less accustomed to arms than the soldiers of the Guard, they were thrown into immediate confusion by a volley from the arquebuses, which were instantly clubbed against them for close combat. "Forward! forward!" cried Roland, hewing a passage with his sword, and shredding down the pike heads like ears of wheat; his strength, stature, weight of arm, and admirable coat of mail, rendering him invulnerable, like a knight of romance. In the court of the barmkyn, and just within the gate, a close and terrible conflict ensued in the dark; for there the sturdy farmer met the assailants in person, at the head of his hynds and followers, all cased in iron, cuirassed and barbed to the teeth. A powerful man, of vast bulk and height, Fleming was sufficiently formidable, without his other accessories of a coat of mail of the fifteenth century, jagged with twelve iron beaks, and one of those enormous iron-studded mauls, which were used in Scotland until the battle of Pinkey, where they proved perfectly futile against the Spanish and German hackbuttiers, who were the main means of winning that battle for the English. The giant was giving all around him to death and destruction; three soldiers, the best men of the Guard, had fallen before him; for, by three separate blows, their brains and casques had been crushed like ripe pumpkins, before Roland could reach him through the press; and, with no other sentiments in his heart than those of rage, the blind and clamorous longing to avenge and to destroy that is sure to arise in one's heart at such a time, he fell furiously upon him. At this crisis, Roland could perceive a man in a close helmet, who, armed with an arquebuse, kept close behind Fleming, and more than once fired in the most cowardly manner over his shoulder. One ball tore the cone of Roland's helmet, and another grazed his shoulder. "Notch me the head of that rascal with thine axe, Lintstock," cried he; "and leave me to deal alone with this rough tilter."