All grey and still it was, save for a cock crowing from a farmstead here and there on the wide wold, broken only by a line of trees that ran across the way.
Under these trees, which were mainly poplars and thick undergrowth of alders about the steep banks of a little brook, we were halted, and here took cover, our men lying down.
"Let no man stir, or speak, save when I speak to him, whatever befalls, on peril of his life," said Xaintrailles, when we were all disposed in hiding.

Then touching me on the shoulder that I should rise, he said-- "You are young enough to climb a tree; are your eyes good ?" "I commonly was the first that saw the hare in her form, when we went coursing at home, sir." "Then up this tree with you! keep outlook along the road, and hide yourself as best you may in the boughs.

Throw this russet cloak over your harness." It was shrewdly chill in the grey November morning, a hoarfrost lying white on the fields.

I took the cloak gladly and bestowed myself in the tree, so that I had a wide view down Lihons way, whence we expected our enemies, the road running plain to see for leagues, like a ribbon, when once the low sun had scattered the mists.

It was a long watch, and a weary, my hands being half frozen in my steel gauntlets.