One party made a dash for the northern extremity of the enclosure, where were the outbuildings, in which our cattle, sheep and goats, and numerous attendants were housed. These servants, however, made their exit, with all speed, from the northern gate, as they saw the Normans enter at the south. One, Badger as he was called by his companions, who was keeper of the hounds and hawks--a mighty hunter, who kept our larder well stocked with venison, and fish, and game of every kind--held his ground. A sly rogue was Badger--so called from his propensity for hunting these animals and clothing himself in their skins. For hunting, hawking, and fishing, he was a prodigy. He was well-nigh fleet as a hare, and could swim like an otter; and had wherewithal so sly a humour, and such shrewdness, that he was a great favourite with me, and I had taken pains to add such instruction as I thought would be serviceable to him. The reader will pardon me this digression. But this Badger was such an active agent in the subsequent troublous times, and served the Saxon cause so well, both by his matchless cunning and his rare valour, that I have taken the trouble to introduce the reader to him at such great length. A most grotesque figure he presented on this fateful morning, clothed as he was from head to foot in skins. "Hilloa!" roared one trooper to another, as they set eyes upon him. "What the deuce kind of an animal is this?" "The foul fiend, or one of his imps, by Moses!" rejoined the other. "Who are you, Satan?" said the first one, riding up to him and giving him a hearty thwack across the shoulders with the flat of his sword; at which Badger set up a most hypocritical howl. "Stash that, will you, you lump of hog's-flesh, or I'll make pork of you in a twinkling! Where are your cronies? Have you buried them, you old grave-digger?"