When the Maiden heard this she was troubled, and asked him what he deemed of the chances of the war, and he said: “Lady, this is what we were talking of with the Lord of Warding Knowe that other day; and I must tell thee, though I shall go to the hosting merrily and expend me there to the utmost, yet I deem that they be the luckiest who may keep them out of this strife, as I may not.” “Yet,” said she, “be they not mighty men, these Barons? and all men say that their League is well knit together; so that at the worst, they overwhelm not the Knight of Longshaw, they may hold them well against him.”
“Lady,” said he, “by my deeming, if we crush not this valiant man utterly he will scatter us; he is not such a man as, if he have any force left, may be held aloof, as a man will hold a fierce sh
