The king nodded his head slightly to a younger man who stood ready. That younger man went out. Edward bade the farmer be seated on a form near the wall, and spent the next few minutes talking of this and that at random, until the young man who had gone out came back with an old, wooden-faced fellow, who pulled his hair as he entered and stood stooping somewhat and stroking his beard with his left hand. Of him the king asked at what o’clock the tide was full. He said, but in the speech of St. Valery,-- “At midnight, for it is the full moon.” “That means that the last of the ebb,” said Edward, half to himself and half to his companions, “will be a little after six in the morning.” The fisherman shook his head and grinned at hearing such strange errors. “After seven,” he said. “Seven hours ebb, five hours flow.” An old man, half servant, half vassal, who looked after the king’s land round the waters of Chichester harbour, and who could always be straight with his master, looked him full in the face and said,-- “Never argue about the tide.” And Edward answered,-- “All the better, so long as it is not too late.” Then he turned to the old fisherman for a last question,-- “What depth is there at the very lowest of the passage on this ebb?” “No more than knee-deep water,” said the old man, “for the springs are making, and we shall have the lowest ebb in three more tides.” All this the king fitted together in one. He saw his opportunity. The ford close at hand, its hardness, the chance of the tide just at the right moment; he saw how all depended upon the defence of the farther shore. He saw that his chance of crossing and escaping to Calais had come. He told the young man to lead the fisherman out and to give him a piece of gold, and to see that no one took it from him. * * * * * The king gave orders for a march in the first hours of the morning, long before dawn, while still they had the full moonlight to guide them. The sergeants were warned. The Court and the army took but little sleep. The grooms had none. The accustomed delays and rearrangements, without which no force is gathered, kept them to within two hours of dawn. There was but one road leading parallel to the shore along the higher dry land southward; the very long column followed it under the moonlight. They reached Saigneville, those few miles to the south, just as the beginnings of daylight, mixing in with the last gold of the moon, was restoring colour to the world. Yet an hour more was the division occupied in marshalling under three columns to face the river. It was broad daylight by the time everything was done, and the sun was very near the edge of the uplands on the farther shore.