In any case it was but two days' march to Ploermel,
where he hoped to bring his journey to an end.
That night they camped at Mauron, where a small English and Breton
garrison held the castle. Right glad were the bowmen to see some
of their own countrymen once more, and they spent the night over
wine and dice, a crowd of Breton girls assisting, so that next
morning their bundles were much lighter, and most of the plunder
of La Brohiniere was left with the men and women of Mauron. Next
day their march lay with a fair sluggish river upon their right,
and a great rolling forest upon their left which covered the whole
country. At last toward evening the towers of Ploermel rose
before them and they saw against a darkening sky the Red Cross of
England waving in the wind. So blue was the river Duc which
skirted the road, and so green its banks, that they might indeed
have been back beside their own homely streams, the Oxford Thames
or the Midland Trent, but ever as the darkness deepened there came
in wild gusts the howling of wolves from the forest to remind them
that they were in a land of war. So busy had men been for many
years in hunting one another that the beasts of the chase had
grown to a monstrous degree, until the streets of the towns were
no longer safe from the wild inroads of the fierce creatures, the
wolves and the bears, who swarmed around them.
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