`` A plague on my sword , '' said he . `` It has lost me my first fight . You have spared my life . Take my sword . '' He held it out to me , but as I stretched my hand the sword groaned like a stricken man , and I leaped back crying , `` Sorcery ! '' ' -LSB- The children looked at the sword as though it might speak again . -RSB- ` Suddenly a clump of Saxons ran out upon me and , seeing a Norman alone , would have killed me , but my Saxon cried out that I was his prisoner , and beat them off . Thus , see you , he saved my life . He put me on my horse and led me through the woods ten long miles to this valley . ' ` To here , d'you mean ? ' said Una . ` To this very valley . We came in by the Lower Ford under the King 's Hill yonder ' -- he pointed eastward where the valley widens . ` And was that Saxon Hugh the novice ? ' Dan asked . ` Yes , and more than that . He had been for three years at the monastery at Bec by Rouen , where ' -- Sir Richard chuckled -- ` the Abbot Herluin would not suffer me to remain . ' ` Why would n't he ? ' said Dan . ` Because I rode my horse into the refectory , when the scholars were at meat , to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot .
It was that very Saxon XXXXX tempted me to do it , and we had not met since that day .
Dan Ford Herluin Hugh King Normans Richard Rouen Saxons Una