And you have escaped without a wound, though I marked that your armour and clothes were covered with mire, as if you had been rolling in the road." "That is just what I have been doing, Sir John.

One of them leaped on to the horse behind me, and pinioned my arms; while two or three others made at me, with axes and staves.

The clasp of the fellow was like an iron band and, seeing that my only chance was to rid myself of him, I slung my leg over my horse, and we came down together, he undermost.
Whether the fall killed him or not, I cannot say, but his arms relaxed.
Half a dozen sprang on me, and in another minute I should have been killed, had not that big trooper of mine come to my aid, and with a mighty mace dashed out their brains, well-nigh before they knew that they were attacked." "A stout fellow, indeed," Sir John said, "and one I should like to have to ride behind me, on the day of battle.

I had marked him before, and thought that I had never seen a more stalwart knave; though methinks that he would look better, did he not crop his hair so wondrously short." Oswald laughed.
"He does it not to beautify himself, Sir John, but to hide the fact that the hair on his crown is but of six weeks' growth." And then he related the circumstances under which Roger came to be a member of his troop.
"By my faith, he has done well!" Sir John said.

"A man with such sinews as that is lost in a cloister.