The times were changed, however, and the forest tracks wound away
from them deserted and silent, with no trample of war-horse or
clang of armor which might herald the approach of an
adversary--so that Sir Nigel rode on his way disconsolate. At
the Lymington River they splashed through the ford, and lay in
the meadows on the further side to eat the bread and salt meat
which they carried upon the sumpter horses. Then, ere the sun
was on the slope of the heavens, they had deftly trussed up
again, and were swinging merrily upon their way, two hundred feet
moving like two.
There is a third cross-road where the track from Boldre runs down
to the old fishing village of Pitt's Deep. Down this, as they
came abreast of it, there walked two men, the one a pace or two
behind the other. The cavaliers could not but pull up their
horses to look at them, for a stranger pair were never seen
journeying together. The first was a misshapen, squalid man with
cruel, cunning eyes and a shock of tangled red hair, bearing in
his hands a small unpainted cross, which he held high so that all
men might see it.
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