As for Hyla, his stomach became as though it were full of water, and his bowels were full of an aching which was fearfully exciting and which at the same time, strangely enough, had an acute physical pleasure in it. Their indecision was stopped by an event which left only one method of flight open to them. As they tossed the chance back and forward to one another, debated upon it and weighed it, they heard the noise of a horseman passing by _ventre à terre_. As he passed he sounded his horn. They wormed their way to the road as they heard him coming, and saw that it was the forester Kenulph. His face was ashen grey and set rigid with excitement, and then both simultaneously saw that he was bearing the news to the castle. He passed them like rain blown by the wind, and turning the corner was lost to their sight. "This makes our way clear algates," said Cerdic. "Sith Kenulph rides to castle hall, we must be bold. It will take while a man might tell hundreds for them to take the news. He will hold all the castle in thrall. They will be forslackt for half-an-hour. He is there by now, all clad with loam and full of his news. Come out into the village and go down to river bank. We go to clear the brook mouth. It's all mucky and begins to kill the fish. Remember, that is what we go to do." "I obey your heasts, Sir Cerdic," Hyla answered him with a smile. "Come, come upon the way. I think it matters not much one way or the other, but we may win our sanctuary by hardiment. Algates, we are ywrocken."[3] "Yes, that are we, and revenge is sweet. No more will he ill-use our girls, or burn us on the green. Surely he has a deep debt to pay." While they had been speaking they had been gathering great armfuls of fallen twigs and branches, and soon they went slowly down the ride with these. The frowning gates of the castle came into their view, but Kenulph had already entered them, and the very guards had left the gates. They passed by to the right, and came on to the green. One or two women were busy washing linen at the doors of the houses, but save for them no one was about. They passed the long walls of the castle, skirting the moat, by which a smooth path ran, till they came to the fields. There they were stopped for a few minutes. One Selred, a serf who tended swine, came out of the field where his charges dwelt. He was a half-witted creature, but little removed from the swine themselves. He carried a spear head, broken off a foot down the shaft, and this had been sharpened on a hone of hard wood for a weapon with which to kill the swine. He pointed to the row of dead animals which lay stark and unclean on one side of the field. [3] Revenged. "Nearly fifty," said he, "have I killed this day for siege vittaille, to their very great dreriment. Holy Maid! never did you hear such squealing."