"I did not dream of acorns and of eating one of them for nothing," he said to himself. "I shall be master yet."
And hardly had the words passed through his mind when splash went a heavy body into the water behind the two swimming horses. Fleetfoot had come up with his master. Swiftly Hugo and Humphrey turned their heads, Hugo with a smile and an encouraging motion of the hand toward his dog, and Humphrey with a frown. "I would I knew who sent the hound after us," grumbled the disgusted serving-man to himself when, the shallow water reached, both riders drew rein for the horses to drink.
Once across the Wharfe Humphrey led the way to a heavy thicket, and dismounting pushed the growth this way and that and so made a passage for the horses, Fleetfoot, Hugo, and himself. In the middle of the thick was a little cleared grassy place where, crowded closely together, all might find room, and here Humphrey announced that they would take their midday rest and meal.
Hugo still said nothing, but he looked very determined, as Humphrey could see. "But I go not to Selby," thought the stubborn serving-man. "I run not my head into the king's noose so near home."
It was an early nooning they had taken, for it was barely half-past twelve when Humphrey broke the silence. He rose, tied each horse securely, and then turning to Hugo said: "Bid the dog stay here. We will go and have a look over the country."
Hugo rose, laid down his bow and arrows, and, bidding the dog watch them, followed Humphrey out of the thicket.
The serving-man, who was well acquainted with this part of the country, now made a little detour into a path which he followed a short distance till he came out a quarter of a mile away from the thicket into a grassy glade in the centre of which towered one of those enormous oaks of which there were many in England at this time. "We will climb up," said Humphrey, "and have a look."
Up they went; Hugo nimbly and Humphrey clumsily and slowly, as became his years and experience, as William Lorimer would have said if he had seen him. Barely had they reached complete cover, and the rustling they made had just ceased, when the tramp of two approaching horses was heard. The sky was now overcast with clouds in spite of the prognostications of the owls, and the rain began to descend heavily, so that the two riders sought refuge beneath the tree. Hugo and Humphrey looked at each other and then down upon the horsemen, who were the two spies, Walter Skinner and Richard Wood.
"I had thought to have come up with them ere this," said Walter
Skinner. "They had not more than half an hour the start of me."
"Have no fear," replied Richard Wood, who was a tall and determined-looking man. "They have most like gone on to Selby on the north side of the river. We shall catch them there."