Chapter 3

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 thee.
Shalt not lie there to drown by inches!"

And he made ready his crossbow, and put a quarrel through the
creature's head.

Dick rode on after this act of rugged mercy, somewhat sobered in
spirit, and looking closely about him for any sign of his less
happy predecessor