"I hope so, Master Guy, but I would rather fight by day than by night; it
is random work when you can neither see your mark nor look straight along
your arrow. If we had a moon we should do well enough, but on these dark
nights skill does not go for much; still, I doubt not that we shall give a
good account of ourselves, for at any rate we shall be able to make them
out before they come to close work. The women have been making a great
store of torches to-day, and that will help us a bit, though I would that
they could be planted fifty yards beyond the moat instead of on the walls,
for although they will be of some use to us they will be of even more to
the enemy. What think you that their plan will be?"
"I should say that they are intending to march forward covered by mantlets
of wattles and hides. They will plant them near the edge of the moat, and
throw up some earthworks to shelter them and their machines; no doubt they
will use the doors they have fetched from all the farmhouses for the same
purpose."
"The doors will be more to the point, certainly," the bowman said. "As to
their hides and wattles, at fifty yards I will warrant our arrows go
through them as if they were paper; but I cannot say as much about stout
oaken doors--that is a target that I have never shot against; I fear that
the shock would shiver the shafts. The mantlets too would serve them to
some purpose, for we should not know exactly where they were standing
behind them.
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