"We suffered a bad check somewhere south of Burgos. There was not a horse to be had that was not full of windgalls, or past cure of the staggers. We lay up at an inn--a very noisome hole it was, but we took little account of that. It was there we came near to our undoing, but it passed, it passed. There came the sound of a horse ridden hard. I could see the watchful look in my master's eye; he bore a fidgeting sword in his scabbard those few minutes, nor was my dagger restful in its sheath. A man went by our inn in a cloud of dust. When it cleared he was away, but I know the look of a soldier, do you see? He was rocking in the saddle: well he might if he had o'ertaken us! For we had not gone at a jog-trot, as you may imagine. He was not on our track. Nay, nay, unless I am much mistaken he was bound for the Frontier. We might have stood in his path and mowed at him; he would have paid no heed. All his orders were to stop the Frontier pass. For that matter I believe we might have declared ourselves all along the way, and had better service. The common folk make a hobgoblin of my master, and fear him like the plague--the grandees not far otherwise, from all I could observe. "Well, we made it in seven days, and might have made it in less, I believe, but for that check south of Burgos. Odds lifelings, but I was glad to leave the post road behind us at Burgos, and strike north-west to Vasconosa. It was to shake off the hounds, you understand, for those that went not to the Frontier would make Santander, as we judged, and that lay to the east of us. A wild, mad journey, and a miracle that we came off, say I!" Miracle or not, they did indeed come to Vasconosa at dusk upon the seventh day. There was some sort of an inn there, but little else in the village but a few hovels, and the Great House. Joshua did good work there while Sir Nicholas washed the travel-stains from his person, and changed his dress. He was trimming his beard when Joshua came up to his room. Joshua came strutting, and looked wisely. "We have beagled out some few matters, so please you, master. The Great House we have seen, and I learn the family came in late last night. Nothing's to be heard of them yet. We may easily come at the house; there are a dozen ways through the gardens, and no guards save at the gatehouse, and the stables. Naught to fear, they think. Why no, if they had not El Beauvallet stalking them." "What of our road?" interrupted Sir Nicholas, combing his beard to a point. "Could you discover the way?"