“Down with the mincing fools who have got no r.r.r’s”

“Burrrrn them, you should say.”

“Frangite capita.”

“Percutite porcos boreales.”

“Vim inferre australibus asinis.”

“Sternite omnes Gallos.”

So they shouted imprecations in Latin and English, and eke in French, for there were many Gauls about.

What chance of getting through the fighting, drunken, riotous mobs?  Quarterstaves were rising and falling upon heads and shoulders.  No deadlier weapons were used, but showers of missiles from time to time descended, unsavoury or otherwise.

At length the superior force of the Northern men prevailed, and Martin, whose blood was strangely stirred, saw a slim and delicate youth fighting so bravely with a huge Northern ox ("bos borealis,” he called him) that for a time he stayed the rush, until the whole Southern line gave way and Martin, entangled with the rout, got driven down Saint Mary’s Lane, opposite the church of that name, an earlier building on the site of the present University church.

At an angle of the street, where another lane entered in, the young Southerner before mentioned turned to bay, and with three or four more of his countryfolk kept the narrow way against scores of pursuers.

Martin could not restrain himself any longer.  He saw three or four men pressed by dozens, and rushed with all the fire of his generous and impetuous nature to their aid, in time to intercept a blow aimed at the young leader: 

Well could he brandish such weapons, and he stood side by side and settled many a “bos borealis,” or northern bullock, with as much zest as ever a southern butcher.  But at length his leader fell, and Martin stood diverting the strokes aimed at his fallen companion, who was stunned for the moment, until a rough hearty voice cried out: 

“Let them alone, they have had enough.  ’Tis cowardly to fight a dozen to one.  Listen, the row is on in the Quatre Voies again.  We shall find more there.”

The two were left alone.

Martin raised his wounded companion, whose head was bleeding profusely.

“Art thou hurt much?”

“Not so very much, only dazed.  I shall soon be better.  I am close home.”

“Let me support you.  Lean on me, I will see you safe.”

“You came just in time.  Where did you come from?  I never saw you before—­and where did you learn to handle the cudgel so well?”

“From the woods of merry Sussex, and later on, the tilt yard of Kenilworth.”

“Oh, you are a true Southerner, then.  So am I, the second son of Waleran de Monceux of Herst, in the Andredsweald.

“Here we are at home—­come in to Saint Dymas’ Hall.”

Chapter 8:  Hubert At Lewes Priory.

William de Warrenne and Gundrada his wife, the daughter of the mighty Conqueror, were travelling on the Continent and made a pilgrimage to the famous Abbey of Clairvaux, presided over by the great abbot, poet, and preacher of the age, Saint Bernard.  So much did they admire all they saw and heard, so sweet was the contrast of monastic peace to their life of ceaseless turmoil, that they determined to found such a house of God on their newly-acquired domains in Sussex, after the fashion of Clairvaux.