On the midnight which followed the feast of Saint Bede the Normans began to issue from their castle and camp. There shone a bright moon along the causeway where they formed their array. First went a great troop of horse with lances and long pennants floating from them. Next went a body of archers bearing long bows and quivers well stocked with long arrows. Then followed a large and miserable company of Saxon serfs and hinds, who had been forcibly impressed into the service, and who were laden like beasts of burthen, carrying stores and provisions on their backs, and hurdles, and planks, and other pieces of timber, by means of which these too confident Normans hoped to be able to cross every ditch, stream, and river. After this unhappy company there marched another band of archers; and then there went another and still greater body of horse; and in the rear of all were more bowmen. As the raised road was very narrow the horsemen marched only two abreast, and the footmen only three abreast; and thus, as the total number of the army was great, the line was very long and thin; and the knights riding in the rear would seldom either hear or see what was passing in the van. Yet merrily and thoughtlessly they went on singing their Norman war-songs, their bridles ringing sharp and clear in the cool night air as if to accompany the music of their songs, and their bright lance-heads glinting in the moon-light: thus merrily and thoughtlessly until the van came abreast of Fenny Ditton, where the road or causeway was flanked on either side by a broad deep ditch or canal, and by a long belt of thick growing willows and alders. But here Eustache, and the other knights that rode in the van, heard a loud voice shouting in very good Norman-French—“Halt, horse and foot! No farther to-night! Saxons true do forbid your advance!” And, well nigh at the same moment those knights and soldiers that rode in the rear heard another loud voice shouting—“Halt, Normans! Halt ye must, but ye shall not get back to Cam-Bridge unless ye can swim the ditch.” It seemed as though some hollow willow-trees had spoken, for neither in front nor rear was there a man seen. But presently the loud voices spoke again, and a still louder voice was heard about mid-way between the two, and all the three voices cried—“Saxons, your bow-strings to your ears, and next a charge for England and Lord Hereward!” As soon as these words were heard in the centre, the Saxon serfs, whom the Normans had impressed, threw the provisions and stores they carried right across the broad ditches; threw down the hurdles and beams and timber on the road, and then, with a wild yell, rushed into the water and swam across to the covering of the trees. But in the centre those trees were all alive before these men reached them, and no sooner were they seen to be safe than a rush was made towards the ground which they had abandoned. All fen-men swim, but to make their passage the quicker light bridges were laid across