"Oh, yes, by midnight, girl, if we spur the sharper; and it is partly on your business that I go, too, child; for I fancy there is something afoot, that bodes no good to your friend Kenric; but we'll nip it in the bud, we'll nip it in the bud, by St. Agatha!" "Ah!" said the girl, turning pale, "there will be danger, then----" "Danger!" said the old knight, looking at her sharply, "danger, not a whit of it! It is but that villain d'Oilly, with a score of spears of Sherwood. I must take fifty lances with me, for, as sheriff, I must keep peace without spear-breaking; were it not for that, I would meet him spear to spear; and he should reckon with me, too, for poor Sir Philip, ere we parted, as he shall do yet, one day, although I see not how to force him to it. So now, kiss me, silly minion, and to bed with you while I go arm me." And the stout old warrior strode up to his cabinet, whence he descended in half an hour, armed _cap-a-pie_ in chain mail, plate armor not having yet come into use, with his flat-topped casque on his head, his heater-shaped shield hung about his neck, and his huge, two-handed sword crossing his whole person, its cross-hilt appearing above his left shoulder, and its tip clashing against the spur on his right heel. As he entered the court of the castle, his men were all in their saddles, sitting firm as pillars of steel, each with his long lance secured by its sling and the socket attached to the stirrup, bearing a tall waxen torch in his right hand, making their mail-coats flash and twinkle in the clear light, as if they were compact of diamonds. Aradas was alone dismounted, holding the stirrup for his lord until he had mounted, when he sprang, all armed as he was, into the saddle. The banner-man at once displayed the square banner of his lord, the trumpeter made the old ramparts ring with the old gathering blast of the house of De Taillebois, and, two and two, the glittering men-at-arms, defiled through the castle gate, and wound down the steep hill side, long to be traced from the battlements, now seen, now lost among the woods and coppices, a line of sinuous light, creeping, like a huge glow-worm, over the dark champaign. Before they reached the lake shore, however, the moon rose, round and red, from behind the Yorkshire fells; and, extinguishing their flambeaux, they pricked rapidly forward through the country, which, intricate as it was, soon became as light as at noonday.