as it was quite new to the English, so was it at first most galling. Their armour was not of sufficient proof to resist the force of the arrows, which poured in upon them like hail, so that any part that was unarmed was almost an assured place for a deep and many times a deadly wound. At first they opened their ranks to make way for the arrows to fall ; but finding that availed them but little, they closed again, covering themselves with their targets, joined together in the manner of a penthouse. The duke, perceiving his archers could now do but little mischief, ordered his horsemen to charge ; but the English received them upon the points of their weapons with so determined a courage, that after a furious contest, which lasted for some time, the Normans were driven from the hills with great loss, and confusion spreading among their ranks, when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction, hastened with a select band to the relief of his dismayed forces. His presence restored the action ; adventuring his person in the front of the battle, commending the forward, blaming the slow, and crying out with vehement gesture and voice, that it was a shame for them, who had been victorious against all men with whom they dealt, to be so long held by the English in delay of victory. The fight was again begun with renewed courage: the clashing of armour, the jostling of bodies, the resounding of blows, was the fairest part of this bloody medley ; but the grisliness of wounds, the hideous falls and groans of the dying, the distorted features of the dead, all the field defiled with dust, blood, broken armour, and mangled bodies, represented terror in her foulest form. Never was fury better governed, never game of death better played; the more they fought the better they fought, the more they smarted the less they regarded the smart.
Finding that the English still resisted with stubborn -
