A certain quantity of meat had been served out to
each family, and they were therefore doing better than in their own
houses, for meat was a luxury seldom touched by the French peasantry.
Almost all who had entered the castle had brought with them a supply of
herbs and vegetables; these, with a handful or two of coarsely-ground meal
boiled into broth, constituted their usual fare, and the addition of a
portion of meat afforded them great satisfaction. Some of the men were
still asleep, in preparation for a long night's work; others were standing
about talking in little groups; some were on the walls watching with
gloomy faces the smoke wreaths that still rose from what had been their
homes. Ducks, geese, and hens walked about unconcernedly looking for any
stray grains that had passed unnoticed when they had last been fed, and a
chorus of dissatisfied grunting arose from the pigs that had a large pen
in the yard next to the huts. These were still smarting under a sense of
injury excited not only by their removal from their familiar haunts, but
by the fact that most of them had been hastily marked by a clipping of
some kind in the ear in order to enable their owners to distinguish them
from the others. Boys were carrying buckets of water from a well in the
court-yard to the troughs for the cattle and horses, and the men-at-arms
were cleaning their armour and polishing their steel caps.
"Well, Tom, I hope we shall get on as well to-night as we did this
morning," Guy said to the leader of the archers.
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