"Upon what condition?"
"That you tell me honestly why you would choose to ride twenty miles to Notley rather than twelve to Mattapany."
"Good Derrick," answered the groom, "it is but as a matter of horsemanship. You have a broader road, and mine is a path much beset with brush-wood. I like not the peril of being unhorsed."
"There is a lie in thy face, John Alward;—the Mattapany road is the broadest and best of the two—is it not so, Pamesack?"
"It is the first that was opened by the white man," replied the Indian; "and more people pass upon it than the other."
"John," said the falconer, "you are a coward. I will not put you to the inventing another lie, but will wager I can tell you at one guess why you would change with me."
"Out with it, Master Derrick!" exclaimed the bystanders.
"Oh, out with it!" repeated John Alward; "I heed not thy gibes."
"You fear the cross road," said the falconer; "you will not pass the fisherman's grave."
"In troth, masters—I must needs own," replied the groom, "that I have qualms. I never was ashamed to tell the truth, and confess that I am so much of a sinner as to feel an honest fear of the devil and his doings. I have known a horse to start and a rider to be flung at the cross road before now:—there are times in the night when both horse and rider may see what it turns one's blood into ice to look at. Nay, I am in earnest, masters:—I jest not."