The old proverb had scarcely left Charlie's lips, when, all at once, they beheld three pages in black livery standing ranged before the gate, although the moment before there was no living creature there. They seemed to have arisen out of the ground, and as they rose they bowed their heads in a sarcastic way to the embassy. The appearance of the pages, and the motion that they made were both accomplished in the same moment of time, and at the motion every one of the horses broke away, like so many scared wildfowl, some one way, and some another. Charlie tried to restrain Corby with the whole might of his capacious arm; but the impatient animal plunged and bounded into the air with such violence, that his rider was obliged to give him head, and away he sprung like a roe over field and river, straining every nerve to be out of sight of Aikwood, while Charlie's warrior cloak, that hung only by the shoulder clasp, flapped so far behind him that he appeared like a black cloud skimming the valley. Though none of the other horses made equal speed with Corby, every one ran as fast as it could, and all to the eastward, though far asunder. The mule, on the contrary, never moved nor concerned himself about the matter. He indeed held forward his long ears, and took a serious look of the pages, as of some sort of beings he did not more than generally understand. Nevertheless he despised them, and looked about with apparent astonishment and derision at the madness and folly of his associates. The friar, finding himself left with his mule and the three pages thus unaccountably, began to address the latter; but they only imitated his motions, and made wry faces, without returning him any answer. The mule had by this time taken another serious look at them, and disliking them exceedingly, he sidled towards them with all his mettle, and tried to hit them with his heels. The urchins then raised such an eldritch laugh that they made the arches of the castle to ring, and, skipping about and about, provoked the mule to farther violence. He, on his part, was nothing loth to attack; he ran open-mouthed at one, kicked at another, and tried to crush another up against the gate, all to the great annoyance of the friar, who, with the utmost difficulty kept his seat for a good while, in spite of the mad evolutions of his provoked and provoking beast. But the game once begun was not suffered to subside. The giggling elves, with the swiftness of lightning, skipped about, and, in whatever direction the mule darted, one of them was always pricking him behind. The worthy friar waxed very wroth, and swore by the life of Pharaoh that he would execute vengeance on them. But the noise of mirth and mischief waxed louder and louder, until the austere inmates of the castle heard; and the great Master said to his only attendant, "Gourlay, what is the meaning of all this uproar?" "It is only Prig, Prim, and Pricker," said he, "making sport with a mendicant friar and his ass."