til
they scatter."

"Ye are doubtless right," returned Dick; "but we came right hastily upon
the errand, even as the time commanded. Here are no houses, neither for
food nor shelter, and by the morrow's dawn we shall know both cold
fingers and an empty belly. How say ye, lads? Will ye stand a pinch for
expedition's sake, or shall we turn by Holywood and sup with Mother
Church? The case being somewhat doubtful, I will drive no man; yet if ye
would suffer me to lead you, ye would choose the first."

The men answered, almost with one voice, that they would follow Sir
Richard where he would.

And Dick, setting spur to his horse, began once more to go forward.

The snow in the trail had been trodden very hard, and the pursuers had
thus a great advantage over the pursued. They pushed on, indeed, at a
round trot, two hundred hoofs beating alternately on the dull pavement
of the snow, and the jingle of weapons and the snorting of horses
raising a warlike noise along the arches of the silent wood.

Presently the wide slot of the pursued came out upon the high-road from
Holywood; it was there, for a moment, indistinguishable; and, where it
once more plunged into the unbeaten snow upon the farther side, Dick was
surprised to see it narrower and lighter trod. Plainly, profiting by the
road, Sir Daniel had begun already to scatter his command.

At all hazards, one chance being equal to another, Dick continued to
pursue the straight trail; and that, after an hour's riding, in which it
led into the very depth of the forest, suddenly split, like a bursting
shell, into two dozen others, leading to every point of the compass.

Dick drew bridle in despair. The short winter's day was near an end; the
sun, dull red orange, shorn of rays, swam low among the leafless
thickets; the shadows were a mile long upon the snow; the frost bit
cruelly at the fingernails; and the breath and steam of the horses
mounted in a cloud.

"Well, we are outwitted," Dick confessed. "Strike we for Holywood, after
all. It is still nearer us than Tunstall--or should be by the station of
the sun."

So they wheeled to their left, turning their backs on the red shield of
sun, and made across country for the abbey. But now times were changed
with them; they could no longer spank forth briskly on a path beaten
firm by the passage of their foes, and for a goal to which that path
itself conducted them. Now they must plough at a dull pace through the
encumbering