Big Ferre at their head, said one to another, ’Let us go down and sell our lives clearly, else they will slay us without mercy.’  Gathering themselves discreetly together, they went down by different gates, and struck out with mighty blows at the English, as if they had been beating out their corn on the threshing-floor; their arms went up and down again, and every blow dealt out a deadly wound.  Big Ferre, seeing his captain laid low and almost dead already, uttered a bitter cry, and advancing upon the English he topped them all, as he did his own fellows, by a head and shoulders.  Raising his axe, he dealt about him deadly blows, insomuch that in front of him the place was soon a void; he felled to the earth all those whom he could reach; of one he broke the head, of another he lopped off the arms; he bore himself so valiantly that in an hour he had with his own hand slain eighteen of them, without counting the wounded; and at this sight his comrades were filled with ardor.  What more shall I say?  All that band of English were forced to turn their backs and fly; some jumped into the ditches full of water; others tried with tottering steps to regain the gates.  Big Ferre, advancing to the spot where the English had planted their flag, took it, killed the bearer, and told one of his own fellows to go and hurl it into a ditch where the wall was as not yet finished.  ‘I cannot,’ said the other, ‘there are still so many English yonder.’  ’Follow me with the flag,’ said Big Ferre; and marching in front, and laying about him right and left with his axe, he opened and cleared the way to the point indicated, so that his comrade could freely hurl the flag into the ditch.  After he had rested a moment, he returned to the fight, and fell so roughly on the English who remained, that all those who could fly hastened to profit thereby.  It is said that on that day, with the help of God and Big Ferre, who, with his own hand, as is certified, laid low more than forty, the greater part of the English who had come to this business never went back from it.  But the captain on our side, William a-Larks, was there stricken mortally:  he was not yet dead when the fight ended; he was carried away to his bed; he recognized all his comrades who were there, and soon afterwards sank under his wounds.  They buried him in the midst of weeping, for he was wise and good.”

“At the news of what had thus happened at Longueil the English were very disconsolate, saying that it was a shame that so many and such brave warriors should have been slain by such rustics.  Next day they came together again from all their camps in the neighborhood, and went and made a vigorous attack at Longueil on our folks, who no longer feared them hardly at all, and went out of their walls to fight them.  In the first rank was Big Ferre, of whom the English had heard so much talk.  When they saw him, and when they felt the weight of his axe and his arm, many of those who had come to this fight would have been right glad not to be there.  Many fled or were grievously wounded or slain.  Some of the English nobles were taken.  If our folks had been willing to give them up for money, as the nobles do, they might have made a great deal; but they would not.