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Updated: June 21, 2025
"They have not good wit, or they would not be so led by us when we be strangers," observed Herebald. "It is ever thus with knaves," said Bernulf. "Though they seem sharp, there is a place where they be dull, and an honest man can often find it, and so outwit them." Then they turned back to Richard Wood and his companions. "Go ye slowly and softly," growled Herebald.
This it is for a vile spy to go round the country with some lumbering men-at-arms, seeking to entrap a poor young lad to his destruction." "Yea," replied Bernulf; "but thou hast left out one thing. Thou shouldst have said, 'This it is when two Saxons get him and them in the toils. They had not been one-half so weary without us. Do but remember that." "Ay," agreed Herebald.
Herebald and Bernulf appeared not to notice; but, withdrawing to a little distance, seemed to confer together and examine narrowly the leaves and twigs and rushes to see if they were bent or broken by the passage of a recent traveller.
For ever he would be wondering in which part of the little town it were best to begin the search. And how it were best to conduct it so that no outsider could manage to claim part of the reward when the runaways were captured. At last, undecided, he fell asleep, and Herebald and Bernulf were awaiting him when he awoke rather late in the morning.
But the course was much slower than that of the day before, and that had been slow enough. Night came and the fagged party in disappointment once more lay down. "Thou hast done well, Herebald," said Bernulf. "To-night it is my turn. But think ye not it were better now to lead straight on to Yarmouth?" "Yea," answered Herebald.
They came in very promptly, and stood with cheerful faces before their master. "I know thee, Herebald; I know thee, Bernulf," said the canon, shaking his head at them in pretended reproof. "Ye be sad knaves both. What! would ye leave the monastery and go forth into the fen on ponies and armed with your staves?
That night, when all the camp was still, Bernulf slipped quietly forth in the darkness. He was gone three hours, and in that time he blazed such a trail as a madman might have taken. A bit of every fringe of rush or reed he came to he broke; and he stamped with his foot in the slimy mud on the edges of ponds and pools.
"Why," said the canon, whimsically, "it were doubtless wholly evil that I should undergo compulsion in mine own domain by a strange serving-man, and be compelled to render aid even against the king's men. Still, since I be compelled to render aid, it were good to render the best possible, and so take with ye Herebald and Bernulf; and spare not for blows, so that ye bring off the young man safe."
But that prince, though invited by this favorable circumstance to make attempts on the neighboring Saxons, gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to turn his arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in several battles. He was recalled from the conquest of that country by an invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of Mercia.
"The business in hand hath an early end when luck goeth with a man," observed Bernulf, with satisfaction. "Yea," responded Herebald. "And luck most often goeth with the man that hath good wit of his own." Their strong arms made light of the short distance they had to row, and they were soon back at the little inn and at rest. As for Richard Wood, weary as he was, he was long in finding sleep.
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