villagers.

CHAPTER II--IN THE FEN

It was near six in the May morning when Dick began to ride down into the
fen upon his homeward way. The sky was all blue; the jolly wind blew
loud and steady; the windmill-sails were spinning; and the willows over
all the fen rippling and whitening like a field of corn. He had been all
night in the saddle, but his heart was good and his body sound, and he
rode right merrily.

The path went down and down into the marsh, till he lost sight of all the
neighbouring landmarks but Kettley windmill on the knoll behind him, and
the extreme top of Tunstall Forest far before. On either hand there were
great fields of blowing reeds and willows, pools of water shaking in the
wind, and treacherous bogs, as green as emerald, to tempt and to betray
the traveller. The path lay almost straight through the morass. It was
already very ancient; its foundation had been laid by Roman soldiery; in
the lapse of ages much of it had sunk, and every here and there, for a
few hundred yards, it lay submerged below the stagnant waters of the fen.

About a mile from Kettley, Dick came to one such break in the plain line
of causeway, where the reeds and willows grew dispersedly like little
islands and confused the eye. The gap, besides, was more than usually
long; it was a place where any stranger might come readily to mischief;
and Dick bethought him, with something like a pang, of the lad whom he
had so imperfectly directed. As for himself, one look backward to where
the windmill sails were turning black against the blue of heaven--one
look forward to the high ground of Tunstall Forest, and he was
sufficiently directed and held straight on, the water washing to his
horse's knees, as safe as on a highway.

Half-way across, and when he had already sighted the path rising high and
dry upon the farther side, he was aware of a great splashing on his
right, and saw a grey horse, sunk to its belly in the mud, and still
spasmodically struggling. Instantly, as though it had divined the
neighbourhood of help, the poor beast began to neigh most piercingly. It
rolled, meanwhile, a blood-shot eye, insane with terror; and as it
sprawled wallowing in the quag, clouds of stinging insects rose and
buzzed about it in the air.

"Alack!" thought Dick, "can the poor lad have perished? There is his
horse, for certain--a brave grey! Nay, comrade, if thou criest to me so
piteously, I will do all man can to help th