Resource we saw none; if there was a cottage, dogs, like wolves for hunger and fierceness, were baying round it.

As for Brother Thomas, an evil bruit had gone before us concerning a cordelier that the fowls and geese were fain to follow, as wilder things, they say, follow the blessed St.Francis.

So there sat Brother Thomas at the cross-roads, footsore, hungry, and sullen, in the midst of us, who dared not speak, he twanging at the string of his arbalest.

He called himself our Moses, in his blasphemous way, and the blind man having girded at him for not leading us into the land of plenty, he had struck the man till he bled, and now stood stanching his wound.
Suddenly Brother Thomas ceased from his twanging, and holding up his hand for silence, leaned his ear to the ground.

The night was still, though a cold wind came very stealthily from the east.
"Horses!" he said.
"It is but the noise of the brook by the way," said the blind man, sullenly.
Brother Thomas listened again.
"No, it is horses," he whispered.