"Ay, thou sayest truly," said the half-drunken Walter Skinner. "And should I now forbear to chase, a dukedom would no more than reward me for the perils I have seen. First in the lofty tree watching the castle; and thou knowest that now, when, from the interdict, no bells may ring to disperse the tempests, I might have died from the lightning stroke, not once but many times. For there might have been a tempest and lightning every day, and no thanks to the king that there was not. Then, too, I did encounter perils from the boughs which might have broken and did not. And wherefore did they not? Because they were too tough and sound. And this, too, moreover, was no thanks to the king. And two horses have I lost,--one mine own and one the gift of the prior of St. Edmund's. And did the prior wish to give me the beast? Nay, he did not, and would have refused it if he had dared. He made as if he gave it because of the king, but he did not. He feared before me, as well he might. For I had met a hedgehog, and when a man is in such a case he is in no mind to have a horse refused him by a fat prior. And all this also was no thanks to the king. And then I did meet that varlet of a groom at the Green Dragon, and he did send me here. And here have I met such misfortunes as would last a man his lifetime." To all this Richard Wood had lent but half an ear, being occupied in turning over in his mind the fact that Hugo and Humphrey had been in the Isle and had gone, and trying to decide what was best to do. He now looked at him. "Mount up behind me and cease thy prating," he said. Then turning to the men-at-arms he continued: "We go hence to Gainsborough. From thence down to Sherwood Forest. It seemeth this serving man loveth woods and wilds. Therefore it were waste of time to seek for him in towns and beaten ways." All the while he was speaking Walter Skinner, with many groans, was trying to mount behind his old companion; but, on account of the horse shying his objections to such a proceeding, and the drunken clumsiness of Walter Skinner himself, nothing had been accomplished. Richard Wood therefore called on one of the men-at-arms to dismount and hoist him up; which he did much as if the fierce little spy had been a bag of meal, and much to Walter Skinner's discomfort, who suddenly found himself heavily seated with one leg doubled up under him and with a bumped face where he had struck against Richard Wood's shoulder. He soon righted himself, however, and, clinging to his old friend, rode away to Gainsborough. CHAPTER XII