A Boy's Ride

by Gulielma Zollinger

"Oh, ay," returned Herebald, indifferently.

All that day Richard Wood kept a sharp eye on his new acquaintances. "Watch them narrowly," he said to his men. "They will seek to make this catch without us and so obtain the reward. Therefore all that ye see them do, do ye likewise, and I will also do the same."

Herebald and Bernulf saw and understood, and laughed together unseen. "They have not good wit, or they would not be so led by us when we be strangers," observed Herebald.

"It is ever thus with knaves," said Bernulf. "Though they seem sharp, there is a place where they be dull, and an honest man can often find it, and so outwit them."

Then they turned back to Richard Wood and his companions. "Go ye slowly and softly," growled Herebald. "Ye go lunging and splashing so that ye may be heard a long way off. Moreover, ye have scared up all the water-fowl hereabouts, and they go screaming over our heads. What think ye? If there be travellers near will they not hide close in the reeds till ye and your noise be past?"

At this rebuke Richard Wood drew rein suddenly and gazed sharply about him on all sides. Then he said, "Your caution shall be obeyed." And he gave the command to his followers to be careful.

Herebald now returned to the side of Bernulf, and the two, gazing with mirthful eyes into each other's faces, separated themselves a little distance and pretended to examine the way narrowly. It was not for nothing that they had served the merry Canon Thurstan for seven years.

That night, when all the camp was still, Bernulf slipped quietly forth in the darkness. He was gone three hours, and in that time he blazed such a trail as a madman might have taken. A bit of every fringe of rush or reed he came to he broke; and he stamped with his foot in the slimy mud on the edges of ponds and pools. "These fools," said he, "know naught of the fens or the Broads, and they will believe all that they see; for the broken bits and the footprints will speak to them of the young lord and his serving-man, and they will listen and hasten on. It is easy to lead a fool a chase."

The next morning Richard Wood was early awake, and, while all the rest were apparently asleep, he, in his turn, stole forth to look about him. "I trust not these knave Saxons entirely," he said to himself. "Though we all ride together now, they will seek to outwit us at the end, and gain the reward for themselves."

He had not gone far when he came upon the evidences of a recent passage along that way, and, in great excitement, he returned to the camp and roused up his followers, and, incidentally, the two Saxons. "Lie not here sleeping," he said, "when we be close on the trail. Let us be off speedily!" His men rose eagerly, and the Saxons also seemed to be stirred up at his words. And very soon, after half a breakfast, they all mounted and rode off, Richard Wood keeping in the advance. Soon he struck the trail blazed the night before by Bernulf, and eagerly he followed it, though he was obliged to do so slowly; for the trail went on ahead for three miles, then doubled, then zigzagged, then went straight east three miles, and bent round till it went due west again.