“Let him go gently for a mile, then thou wilt need neither whip nor spur,” cried the old man.
Cuthbert obeyed; but soon found the horse eager to canter, then to gallop; joyfully he gave it its head, holding it up carefully in stony places: for did not life, and more than life, depend upon the poor beast?
Mile after mile flew by; and now Langport was in sight; it was the hour of noon.
Cuthbert inquired at the inn again; there was but one, frequented by wayfarers.
“Yes, a young page who seemed anxious to reach Glastonbury, had left but half-an-hour; he had taken a fresh steed, and left his own, much exhausted, behind.”
Cuthbert delayed not a moment; his horse did not seem a wit inclined to tarry either.
But now he entered a district of bad roads, and progress was slow, for a fall would ruin everything; the comfort was that Nicholas must be equally delayed.
Hour after hour of sickening disappointment; every turn of the road, our hero looked for his young foe, but in vain; and now the sun, which sets soon after four in November, was sinking down to the horizon; the ground was becoming hard again with the frost: it had thawed in the noon-tide.
At length, the distant Tor arose upon the horizon, a solitary hill arising like a beacon from the wide plain of Avalon, but still no Nicholas.