"Good Derrick," answered the groom, "it is but as a matter of horsemanship. You have a broader road, and mine is a path much beset with brush-wood. I like not the peril of being unhorsed." "There is a lie in thy face, John Alward;--the Mattapany road is the broadest and best of the two--is it not so, Pamesack?" "It is the first that was opened by the white man," replied the Indian; "and more people pass upon it than the other." "John," said the falconer, "you are a coward. I will not put you to the inventing another lie, but will wager I can tell you at one guess why you would change with me." "Out with it, Master Derrick!" exclaimed the bystanders. "Oh, out with it!" repeated John Alward; "I heed not thy gibes." "You fear the cross road," said the falconer; "you will not pass the fisherman's grave." "In troth, masters--I must needs own," replied the groom, "that I have qualms. I never was ashamed to tell the truth, and confess that I am so much of a sinner as to feel an honest fear of the devil and his doings. I have known a horse to start and a rider to be flung at the cross road before now:--there are times in the night when both horse and rider may see what it turns one's blood into ice to look at. Nay, I am in earnest, masters:--I jest not." "Thou hast honestly confessed, like a brave man, that thou art a coward, John Alward; and so it shall be a bargain between us. I will take your message. I fear not Paul Kelpy--he has been down with that stake through his body, ever too fast to walk abroad." "There's my hand to it," said the groom, "and thanks to boot. I am no coward, Derrick,--but have an infirmity which will not endure to look by night in the lonesome woods, upon a spirit which walks with a great shaft through it. Willy of the Flats saw it, in that fashion, as he went home from the Viewer's feast on the eve of St. Agnes." "Willy had seen too much of the Viewer's hollands that night," said Derrick; "and they are spirits worth a dozen Paul Kelpys, even if the whole dozen were trussed upon the same stake, like herrings hung up to smoke. In spite of the fisherman and his bolt, I warrant you I pass unchallenged betwixt this and Mattapany." The secretary, soon after this, entered the hall and confirmed the arrangements which had just been made. He accordingly delivered the letters intended for Colonel Talbot and Nicholas Sewall to the falconer, and that for Mr. Notley, the late lieutenant general of the province, to John Alward. To the Indian was committed the duty of bearing the missions to such members of the council as resided either in the town or within a few miles of it. Holding it matter of indifference whether he despatched this duty by night or by day, the Knife took it in hand at once, and set forth, on foot, with a letter for Colonel Digges, who lived about five miles off, at the same time that the other two couriers mounted their horses for their lonesome journeys through the forest. CHAPTER VI.