"They will, if they can, find some quiet farmhouse a mile out of the village, and there get lodgings for themselves and beasts. You can arrange with them to take up their station on the road, so that you can, if needs be, find them."
It was with a sigh that Roger flung himself into the saddle. It was not the horse on which he had ridden there, but a strong, shaggy pony.
"He does not look much," one of the men said, "but there is no better horse, of the sort, in the country. He has both speed and bottom, and can carry you up or down hill, and is as sure-footed as a goat."
Roger had assented to the change, for his own horse was as unlike one that a monk would have bestrode as could be well imagined. He had obtained a stout staff, to which the village smith had added two or three iron rings at each end, rendering it a formidable weapon, indeed, in such hands.
"It reminds me of our start for Dunbar, master," he said. "One might have a worse weapon than this;" and he swung it round his head, in quarterstaff fashion; "still, I prefer a mace."
"That staff will do just as well, Roger. A man would need a hard skull, indeed, to require more than one blow from such a weapon."
Now that Adam Armstrong had done all that there was to do, he went again to the cottage where Allan lay. He had paid several visits there, in the afternoon; but there was nought for him to do, and no comfort to be gained from the white face of the insensible lad. Meg assured him, however, that he was going on as well as could be expected.
"He is in a torpor, at present," she said; "and may so lie for two or three days; but so long as there is no fever he will, I hope, know you when he opens his eyes. There is nought to do but to keep wet cloths round his head, and to put on a fresh poultice over the wound, every hour."
