These things they sought for us and have found death on the way--
let it be!"
He laughed as he spake; but then the grief of the end of battle came
upon him and he trembled and shook, and great tears burst from his eyes
and rolled down his cheeks, and he became stark and hard-faced.
Then Ursula took his hands and caressed them, and kissed his face,
and fell a-talking to him of how they rode the pass to the Valley
of Sweet Chestnuts; and in a while his heart and his mind came back
to him as it did that other time of which she spake, and he kissed
her in turn, and began to tell her of his old chamber in the turret
of the High House.
And now there come riding across the field two warriors.
They draw rein by the mound, and one lights down, and lo! it
is Long Nicholas; and he took Ralph in his arms, and kissed him
and wept over him for all his grizzled beard and his gaunt limbs;
but few words he had for him, save this: "My little Lord, was it thou
that was the wise captain to-day, or this stout lifter and reiver!"
But the other man was Stephen a-Hurst, who laughed and said:
"Nay, Nicholas, I was the fool, and this stripling the wise warrior.
But, Lord Ralph, thou wilt pardon me, I hope, but we could not kill
them all, for they would not fight in any wise; what shall we do
with them?" Ralph knit his brows and thought a little; then he said:
"How many hast thou taken?" Said Stephen: "Some two hundred alive.
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