I saw him -- her -- I saw her in the stable a good hour agone ; ' a was saddling a grey horse . '' `` Now , by the rood ! '' cried Sir Daniel , `` the wench was worth five hundred pound to me and more . '' `` Sir knight , '' observed the messenger , with bitterness , `` while that ye are here , roaring for five hundred pounds , the realm of England is elsewhere being lost and won . '' `` It is well said , '' replied Sir Daniel . `` Selden , fall me out with six cross-bowmen ; hunt me her down . I care not what it cost ; but , at my returning , let me find her at the Moat House . Be it upon your head . And now , sir messenger , we march . '' And the troop broke into a good trot , and Selden and his six men were left behind upon the street of Kettley , with the staring 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 XXXXX a grey horse , sunk to its belly in the mud , and still spasmodically struggling .
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