So the men would have it
that they had been gulled, and they fell away one after another, till
there was nothing for it but for the Duke and his sons, and my Lords
of Salisbury and Warwick and a few score more of us, to ride off as
best we might, with Sir Andrew Trollope and his men after us, as hard
as might be, so that we had to break up, and keep few together. I
went with the Duke of York and young Lord Edmund into Wales, and
thence in a bit of a fishing-boat across to Ireland. Ask me to fight
in full field with twice the numbers, but never ask me to put to sea
again! There's nothing like it for taking heart and soul out of a
man!"
"I have crossed the sea often enow in the good old days, and known
nothing worse than a qualm or two."
"That was to France," said his son. "This Irish Sea is far wider and
far more tossing, I know for my own part. I'd have given a knight's
fee to any one who would have thrown me overboard. I felt like an
empty bag! But once there, they could not make enough of us. The
Duke had got their hearts before, and odd sort of hearts they are. I
was deaf with the wild kernes shouting round about in their
gibberish--such figures, too, as they are, with their blue cloaks,
streaming hair, and long glibbes (moustaches), and the Lords of the
Pale, as they call the English sort, are nigh about as wild and
savage as the mere Irish. It was as much as my Lord Duke could do to
hinder two of them from coming to blows in his presence; and you
should have heard them howl at one another.
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