Grey Dick pulled rein and listened.
"Seven, I think, not more," he said.

"Now, master, do you stand or run, for these will be Clavering horses ?" Hugh thought for a moment.

His aim was not to fight, but to get through to London.

Yet if he fled the pursuers would raise the country on them as they came, so that in the end they must be taken, since those who followed would find fresh horses.
"It seems best to stand," he said.
"So say I," answered Grey Dick; and led the way to a little hillock by the roadside on which grew some wind-bent firs.
Here they dismounted and gave their horses into the keeping of one man, while Grey Dick and the others drew their bows from the cases and strung them.

Scarcely had they done so when the mist, lifting in the morning breeze, showed them their pursuers--seven of them, as Dick had said--headed by one of the French knights, and riding scattered, between two and three hundred yards away.