A man had dragged himself to his feet, a short, square fellow who held himself erect with a grip on a side-post.

His eyes were vacant, dazzled by the light and also by pain.
He seemed to have had hard usage that day, for his shaggy locks were matted with blood from a sword-cut above his forehead, one arm hung limp, and his tunic was torn and gashed.

He had no weapons but a knife which he held blade upwards in the hollow of his big hand.
The four who confronted him were as ill-looking a quartet as Duke William's motley host could show.

One, the leader, was an unfrocked priest of Rouen; one was a hedge-robber from the western marches who had followed Alan of Brittany; a third had the olive cheeks and the long nose of the south; and the fourth was a heavy German from beyond the Rhine.

They were the kites that batten on the offal of war, and the great battle on the seashore having been won by better men, were creeping into the conquered land for the firstfruits of its plunder.
"An English porker," cried the leader.