"And now,
Josceline, son of Lord De Aldithely," he said, "my arrow will bid thee
halt this time, and not my voice. And thou, Richard Wood, who didst
say, 'We hunt no more in company,' what wouldst thou give to know of
this place in the Isle of Axholme? And thou mayst have thy men-at-arms
to bear thee company, and to pay for when thou art done with them. They
cost thee more than a bow and some arrows cost me, nor will they do
thee one half the good."
So thinking he bestrode the vicious beast which backed and plunged
about the inn yard, and from which the grooms and the watching maids
fled in all directions. Walter Skinner, however, was not to be
unseated, and, the horse being headed in the right direction, his next
plunge carried him out of the yard and fairly started him on his way,
the spur of his rider giving him no permission to halt for a moment.
"And now," thought Walter Skinner, when he had crossed the Don and was
free of the town, "what said the knave groom? I must go till I come to
it. Ay, and who knoweth when that shall be, and who knoweth the way in
this pitfall of bogs? Three scrub trees, saith he, and all together on
one little solid place.
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