spake: "This is a handy weapon, and they who made it were
not without craft, and it pleases me to see it; for now when it brings
home prey in the evening, the goodman will deem my maw the less
burdensome to him. By my rede, goodman, ye will do well to make thy
youngling the hunter to us all, for such bows as this may be shot in
only by them that be fated thereto." And he nodded and smiled on
Osberne, and the lad deemed that the new man would be friendly to him.

So then was supper brought in, and Stephen the Eater played as good a
part as if he had eaten nought since sunrise.

But the next day, when Stephen was boun for driving the sheep to the
bent, he said to Osberne: "Come thou with me, young master, to show me
the way; and bring thy bow and arrows withal, and see if thou canst
shoot us something toothsome, for both of feathers and fur their is
foison on the hill-side." So they went together, and betwixt whiles of
the shepherding Osberne shot a whole string of heathfowl and whimbrel;
and ever he hit that which he shot at, so that the arrows were indeed
easy to find, since they never failed to be in the quarry.

The goodman was well pleased with his catch, and Stephen licked his
lips over the look of the larder. And the next day the lad let Stephen
go alone to the hill, and he himself took a horse and went up the
water a ten miles toward the mountain, and there he slew a hart of ten
tines with one arrow, and brought the quarry home across the horse, to
the joy of all the household, and the goodman was not rueing his
bargain with Stephen the Eater. So it went on that every two or three
days Osberne fared afield after catch, and but seldom came home
empty-handed, and the other days he did as he would and went where he
listed. And now he began to follow the rede of Steelhead, and went
oftenest by the side of the Sundering Flood, but as yet he had gone up
the water and not down.

Chapter IX. The Bight of the Cloven Knoll

And now it was mid-April, and the goodman dight him to ride to a mote
of the neighbours at a stead hight Bullmeads, where the Dalesmen were
wont to gather in the spring, that they might ride thence all together
to the town of Eastcheaping and sell the autumn clip of wool and do
other chaffer. So the carle goes his ways alone, and will be one night
at Bullmeads and two at Eastcheaping, and then another at Bullmeads,
and be back on the fifth day. And when he was gone comes Stephen to
Osberne, and