the Christmas midnight
God make your sword sharp , my son . '' So we departed , and when I met Amald again , he said that what the prior had done was well thought of ; so we agreed that I should take thirty men , an old squire of our house , well skilled in war , along with them , scale the walls as quietly as possible , and open the gates to the rest . I set off accordingly , after that with low laughing we had put the albs all over us , wrapping the ladders also in white . Then we crept very warily and slowly up to the wall ; the moat was frozen over , and on the ice the snow lay quite thick ; we all thought that the guards must be careless enough , when they did not even take the trouble to break the ice in the moat So we listened - there was no sound at all , the Christmas midnight mass had long ago been over , it was nearly three o'clock , and the moon began to clear , there was scarce any snow falling now , only a flake or two from some low hurrying cloud or other : the wind sighed gently about the round towers there , but it was bitter cold , for it had begun to freeze again ; we listened for some minutes , about a quarter of an hour I think , then at a sign from me , they raised the ladders carefully , muffled as they were at the top with swathings of wool . I mounted first , old Squire Hugh followed last ; noiselessly we ascended , and soon stood altogether on the walls ; then we carefully lowered the ladders again with long ropes ; we got our swords and axes from out of the folds of our priests ' raiments , and set forward , till we reached the first tower along the wall ; the door was open , in the chamber at the top there was a fire slowly smouldering , nothing else ; we passed through it , and began to go down the spiral staircase , I first , with my axe shortened in my hand . - `` What if we were surprised there , '' I thought , and I longed to be out in the air again ; - `` What if the door were fast at the bottom . '' As we passed the second chamber , we heard some one within snoring loudly : I looked in quietly , and saw a big man with long black hair , that fell off his pillow and swept the ground , lying snoring , with his nose turned up and his mouth open , but he seemed so sound asleep that we did not stop to slay him .