Three or four lads and girls were sauntering about, heeding or not heeding the cattle.

They looked up toward us as we crowded into the last close, and slowly loitered off toward the village.

Nothing looked like battle; yet battle sounded in the air; for now we heard the beat of the horse-hoofs of the men-at-arms coming on towards us like the rolling of distant thunder, and growing louder and louder every minute; we were none too soon in turning to face them.

Jack Straw was on our side of the road, and with a few gestures and a word or two he got his men into their places.

Six archers lined the hedge along the road where the banner of Adam and Eve, rising above the grey leaves of the apple-trees, challenged the new-comers; and of the billmen also he kept a good few ready to guard the road in case the enemy should try to rush it with the horsemen.