Nor was Oliver satisfied with displaying his courage against the enemy in the fierce skirmishes that almost daily took place in the vicinity of the camp of refuge. Nothing less, indeed, than taking the town and castle of Lewes from the French garrison would content him, and sometimes, accompanied by bands of ten or twenty, sometimes only by Canmore, the bloodhound, he roamed the country on foot to watch his opportunity and gain intelligence likely to aid him in his project. Nobody, however, sympathised very particularly with his aspiration, and Collingham especially, it was clear, thought that the wood and the morass and the intrenched camp were fitter strongholds for people in their circumstances than the walled town, and the fortified castle. Oliver, however, very slow to embrace this conviction, in spite of remonstrances, pursued his enterprise with ardour and zeal, and, in the course of his adventures, found himself in a situation of such peril that he well-nigh gave himself up for lost.
One spring evening, after having been for hours prowling within sight of Lewes, unattended save by the bloodhound, he retreated to the surrounding forest, and, feeling much more fatigued with the exertions of the day than was his wont, he was fain to seek rest under a giant tree which spread its branches over a wide space of ground. Within a few paces the sward was smeared with blood, and at first Oliver supposed that some fray had just taken place there between the French and a party of his comrades. A closer examination, however, convinced him that one or more of the wild bulls which in that age ran free in the oaken forests of England had that day been slaughtered on the spot, possibly to supply food to the garrison, who, being in a hostile country and in a district which they had early exhausted by their rapacity, were known to be pressed for provisions. Not deeming the matter worthy of prolonged consideration, the boy-warrior returned to the root of the tree and laid down his axe with the expectation of enjoying some repose undisturbed.
Resting himself on the lowest bough, and settling himself securely with his feet on the grass and the faithful hound by his side, Oliver Icingla endeavoured to snatch a brief sleep in the twilight. But sleep would not come, and, as twilight faded into darkness and evening deepened into night, and the moon rose and shone through the trees on the grass, he thought of Beatrix de Moreville and of Oakmede and Dame Isabel, and from his home and his mother Oliver’s thoughts wandered to the Icinglas and the days when they had been great in England and marched to battle under a gonfalon as stately as a king’s.