'As I stood doubting, a woman ran down from the oak
wood above the King's Hill yonder, and cried out that
some Normans were driving off the swine there.

"'Norman or Saxon," said I, "we must beat them back,
or they will rob us every day. Out at them with any arms
ye have!" So I loosed those three carles and we ran
together, my men-at-arms and the Saxons with bills and
axes which they had hidden in the thatch of their huts,
and Hugh led them. Half-way up the King's Hill we
found a false fellow from Picardy - a sutler that sold wine
in the Duke's camp - with a dead knight's shield on his
arm, a stolen horse under him, and some ten or twelve
wastrels at his tail, all cutting and slashing at the pigs. We
beat them off, and saved our pork. One hundred and
seventy pigs we saved in that great battle.' Sir
Richard laughed.

'That, then, was our first work together, and I bade
Hugh tell his folk that so would I deal with any man,
knight or churl, Norman or Saxon, who stole as much as
one egg from our valley. Said he to me, riding home:
"Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening." I
answered: "England must be thine and mine, then. Help
me, Hugh, to deal aright with these people. Make them
to know that if they slay me De Aquila will surely send to
slay them, and he will put a worse man in my place."

"That may well be true," said he, and gave me his hand.