“Thou hast but just arrived; get thine own breakfast, and thou needest not tarry again till thou catchest Master Redpate. He could not get a change of horses here either, although he tried hard; there was a hunt in the neighbourhood, and every steed was in the field; thou wilt hear of him before thou reachest Glastonbury.” Cuthbert was forced to make a merit of necessity and wait as patiently as he could. “If thou canst not take it easy, take it as easy as thou canst,” said this old philosopher of an ostler. At the end of the half-hour he brought the horse to the door. Cuthbert mounted eagerly, gave the man his promised douceur, and was off. “Let him go gently for a mile, then thou wilt need neither whip nor spur,” cried the old man. Cuthbert obeyed; but soon found the horse eager to canter, then to gallop; joyfully he gave it its head, holding it up carefully in stony places: for did not life, and more than life, depend upon the poor beast? Mile after mile flew by; and now Langport was in sight; it was the hour of noon. Cuthbert inquired at the inn again; there was but one, frequented by wayfarers. “Yes, a young page who seemed anxious to reach Glastonbury, had left but half-an-hour; he had taken a fresh steed, and left his own, much exhausted, behind.” Cuthbert delayed not a moment; his horse did not seem a wit inclined to tarry either. But now he entered a district of bad roads, and progress was slow, for a fall would ruin everything; the comfort was that Nicholas must be equally delayed. Hour after hour of sickening disappointment; every turn of the road, our hero looked for his young foe, but in vain; and now the sun, which sets soon after four in November, was sinking down to the horizon; the ground was becoming hard again with the frost: it had thawed in the noon-tide. At length, the distant Tor arose upon the horizon, a solitary hill arising like a beacon from the wide plain of Avalon, but still no Nicholas. Now he entered the precincts of the forest, which had once extended for miles around Glastonbury, that same forest introduced to our readers in the prologue to our tale, wherein the youthful Cuthbert was found in the snow by Giles Hodge. Suddenly his eyes were attracted by an object still some distance in front of him, lying against the trunk of a huge beech tree. It looked like a human figure. Nearer, nearer; yes, it is a youth lying on the road, he is in the dress of a page, he has red hair; it is _Nicholas_. Cuthbert leapt from his steed, and as he did so saw the solution of the thing: the red-haired page’s horse had stumbled upon some sharp flints, and thrown his rider with great violence; and there he lay, as if dead, in the road, a low moaning alone testifying that life yet lingered. “God has interposed in defence of the right,” thought Cuthbert, with awe, not unmingled with pity in spite of his recent hostile intentions; for the sight of the suffering of his foe subdued his animosity.