Part 18 (2/2)

”Thou'lt need to buy thy food and lodging as a traveler,” I said, ”and not be taken as a prowling varlet. Look to it now.”

Then he that had been our prisoner found voice at last and began to murmur broken words of thanks and to enc.u.mber his new found liberty with oaths of lifelong fealty to ourselves. But Cedric again checked him with uplifted hand.

”Hark!” he whispered, ”what was that sound?”

For a moment all three of us stood silent and breathless, listening to the wind in the branches without and the faint snapping of coals on the hearth. Then came the noise again,-a long drawn, baying howl of a hound on a scent.

”Some of our neighbors hunt the deer,” I said.

”Nay,” answered Cedric quickly, ”'tis no deer-hound. 'Tis a far deeper note.”

Meanwhile the face of Egbert had turned an ashen gray, and now his limbs shook with very terror.

”'Tis the bloodhounds of Gilroy,” he gasped. ”My lord ever keeps two or three for just such use as this. They follow on my track.”

Then from a window we saw, a furlong off in the open wood, two huge brown hounds that ran with noses close to earth and upon a path that led straight toward the lodge.

Cedric seized his cross-bow again from Egbert's hands.

”Get thee back within,” he commanded, ”I will soon stop the coursing of these blood beasts.”

Egbert leaped through the door again to the inner room; and Cedric, throwing wide the shutter, was taking aim at the foremost of the hounds when I cried out from behind him:

”Hold! Hold! It is too late. There come the hors.e.m.e.n.”

From another point in the wood, not far from where the dogs had emerged, there were now riding toward us half a dozen mounted men. Cedric withdrew his weapon; and we gazed upon them in utter dismay. Lord Gilroy and Sir Philip Carrington were in the lead, and after them came three or four stout foresters and last of all, upon an ambling palfrey, none other than Simon, the dogmaster, with his head bound round and round with a great white cloth.

Cedric put away his bow, and, unbarring the door of the lodge, stood on the step without, spurning away the hounds that sought to enter.

”Good morrow, gentlemen!” he called, full jovially.

”Good morrow, gentlemen _both_,” answered Lord Gilroy with a most wicked laugh.

”Your hunting does not prosper,” said Cedric, paying no heed to the affront conveyed in Gilroy's sneering words.

”How not?”

”Why, it would seem that your hounds have picked up our trail to the lodge here in place of that of their proper quarry, as the best of dogs will do at times.”

”Aye,” answered Lord Gilroy, still with the evil smile on his face. ”The best of dogs and men do err at times. And yet, 'tis pa.s.sing strange they are so set upon it. See! They course about and about thy little lodge and will not leave it.”

Cedric cast a careless glance at the hounds. Then he said:

”Come messieurs, can ye not alight for a moment and rest within? I cannot offer meat and drink for here we have none; but you may sit upon a bench by a fire while your men aid the hounds at finding the track again.”

Lord Gilroy threw his bridle rein to one of the foresters, leaped down from his horse, and strode toward the door; and his nephew did likewise.

Simon and the others withdrew to a little distance and dismounted by the brook where they called the hounds to them.

When our most unwelcome guests were within the lodge, Cedric made haste to place for them the benches before the fireplace and again lamented that the place afforded nothing of refreshment. I made such talk as I might with both Lord Gilroy and Sir Philip, asking them of the tourney at Winchester where they had lately ridden, the deer on Gilroy lands and other like matters of no import.

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