Egbert leaped through the door again to the inner room; and Cedric, throwing wide the shutter, was taking aim at the foremost of the hounds when I cried out from behind him:
“Hold! Hold! It is too late. There come the horsemen.”
From another point in the wood, not far from where the dogs had emerged, there were now riding toward us half a dozen mounted men. Cedric withdrew his weapon; and we gazed upon them in utter dismay. Lord Gilroy and Sir Philip Carrington were in the lead, and after them came three or four stout foresters and last of all, upon an ambling palfrey, none other than Simon, the dogmaster, with his head bound round and round with a great white cloth.
Cedric put away his bow, and, unbarring the door of the lodge, stood on the step without, spurning away the hounds that sought to enter.
“Good morrow, gentlemen!” he called, full jovially.
“Good morrow, gentlemen both,” answered Lord Gilroy with a most wicked laugh.
“Your hunting does not prosper,” said Cedric, paying no heed to the affront conveyed in Gilroy’s sneering words.
“How not?”
“Why, it would seem that your hounds have picked up our trail to the lodge here in place of that of their proper quarry, as the best of dogs will do at times.”
“Aye,” answered Lord Gilroy, still with the evil smile on his face. “The best of dogs and men do err at times. And yet, ’tis passing strange they are so set upon it. See! They course about and about thy little lodge and will not leave it.”