Now they rode that fair well-peopled land, and nought befel them to
tell of till the fourth day thence, and then, as they were riding a
good highway with a somewhat steep bank or little hill on their left
hands, as they turned about the said hill and had all the plain to
their right hands before them, they saw new tidings, and it was just
about high noon. For there lay in their road, a mile and a half ahead,
a thorp so big that it was well-nigh a little town, but quite
unfenced, though many of the houses were were goodly and great as for
such a place. But now all was going ill there, for they saw smoke and
flames coming forth from the windows and roofs of many of the houses,
and a confused crying and shrieking came down the wind to them, and
Osberne the keen-eyed deemed he could see folk, some a-horseback,
fleeing down the highway toward them. Then Sir Godrick cried out:
"Prick on, good men of mine! This is no case for tarrying, these be
the Black Skinners, and if we make not the more haste, all will be
under fire and steel."
And he spurred withal, and Osberne after him. But now as they drew
nigher there was no naysaying but that folk were fleeing desperately
along the highway, and some with their hands spread out to the
newcomers as if praying for help, young men and old, women and
children; and after them came howling and smiting men-at-arms in wild
armour, and though they were not in all ways like to those with whom
the Dalesmen had fought by the Sundering Flood, yet somehow they
called those wretches to Osberne's remembrance, and he knew at once
what had befallen, and wrath flamed up in his heart, for it well-nigh
seemed to him as if Elfhild must have been borne off again. And he
unknit the peace-strings from about Boardcleaver, and drew him forth
so that a clear humming noise went forth into the sunlit air, and
spurred on so hard that he outwent every man there.
But when the Skinners saw those riders coming on, they stayed the
chase, and some few tarried while they shot from their short-bows,
which did but little harm, and so they hustled back into the thorp;
and some few, the first of them, gat through and off into the fields;
but the fleers drew aside to the right hand and the left, calling
blessings on the good Knight and his, and, when the torrent of them
was past, followed after timidly towards their wasted dwelling. And as
Sir Godrick and his were within the thorp they found a many of the
Skinners there (two hundreds of their carcases were buried afterwards)
and all about by the houses lay mangled bodies of the country-folk,
some few with weapons in their hands, but more of women and children.
But when Godrick and his had slain the first plump that they had
driven in from the road, the Knight cried out: "Ye thorp-dwellers,
look to quenching the fires, while we slay you these wolf-swine."
Thereon the countrymen began to run together with buckets wherever the
riders were before them. And there was a pretty stream running down
the mid-most of the street, and though it were dyed with blood that
day, it was no worse for the quenching of the flames. Meanwhile Sir
Godrick and his set themselves to the work, and it was not right
perilous, for the thieves were all about scattermeal in twos and
threes, and most afoot robbing and murdering and fire-raising, so that
they made but such defence, when they made any, as the rat makes to
the terrier. Shortly to say it, in half an hour there was not one of
them left alive, save some few who gat to their horses and fled,
having cast away their weapons and armour. Then the riders turned to
help the thorp-dwellers in quenching their fires, and in some two
hours they had got all under wherein was any hope, and the rest they
must let burn away.
Then would Sir Godrick have gone his ways, but the poor folk of the
thorp prayed him so piteously to abide till the morrow that he had no
heart to naysay them. So they brought him and his what things they
might get together after the ravage, and begrudged them nought.
Moreover in the morning five stout fellows of the younger sort prayed
him to take them with him to serve him in war, since they knew not now
how to live; so he yeasaid them, nothing loth, and horsed them on the
Skinners' way-beasts, which were good, and armed them with such of
their armour as was not too filthy for decent men to use. The rest of
the horses and gear they left to the thorp-abiders, to better their
hard case withal.
So they departed, and that same day they came on two other thorps, but
not so big as this, which had been utterly ravaged, so that there was
neither dog nor cat therein, save in one house two little men-children
of two and three years old, whom they brought away with them for
pity's sake.
The next day they came to a cheaping-town, walled and defensible,
whose gates were shut for fear of the Skinners. But when Sir Godrick
had spoken to the captain of the guard at the gate, and had told him
how they had fared of late, and of the slaughter of the Skinners, they
opened to them joyfully, and made them kindly welcome, and there they
rested a three days, of which rest their way-beasts had great need.