Then the villagers dismounted.
"You made a stout defence, men," Sir John said.

"It was well that you had time to gain that house." "It was agreed that all should take to it, Sir Knight," one of the men said; "but the attack was so sudden that only we, and these women, had time to reach it before they were on us; and, had it not been for your arrival, they must soon have mastered us, for they were bringing up a tree to burst in the door; and as none of us had time to catch up our bows and arrows, we had no way of hindering them.

Still, methinks many would have fallen, before they forced their way in." The men now fell in again.

Their numbers were counted.

The losses were by far the heaviest in the front line.