'
Therewith he passed on, and his men followed, stout, stark, and
merry-faced, girt with swords, and bearing over their shoulders long-
staved axes, and spears not so long as those which the Dalesmen bore;
and they had but a half score of arrow-shot with them.
Next came a young man, blue-eyed also, with hair the colour of flax
on the distaff, broad-faced and short-nosed, low of stature, but very
strong-built, who cried out in a loud, cheerful voice:
'I am Strongitharm of the Shepherds, and these valiant men are of the
Fleece and the Thorn blended together, for so they would have it; and
their tale is one hundred and two score and ten.'
Then the men of those kindreds went past merry and shouting, and they
were clad and weaponed like to them of Greenbury, but had with them a
score of bowmen. And all these Shepherd-folk wore over their
hauberks white woollen surcoats broidered with green and red.
Now again uprose the cry, and there stood before the War-leader a
very tall man of fifty winters, dark-faced and grey-eyed, and he
spake slowly and somewhat softly, and said:
'War-leader, this is Red-wolf of the Woodlanders leading the men who
go under the sign of the War-shaft, to the number of an hundred and
two.
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