But the man would have it that I and not the horse saved his son, and
was most grateful, bidding me command him in anything all his life long,
even to life itself, saying that he owed me both his own and the boy's.
And that made me fain to laugh it away, being uneasy at his praise,
which seemed overmuch. However, as we rode home, my father said I had
made a friend for life, and that one never knew when such would be wanted.

Now this man was a franklin, and by no means a poor one, so now at last
I remembered my father's words, and knew that I was glad to have one
friend whom I knew well enough would not turn away from me, for I had
seen him many times since, and liked him well.

I would go to him, tell him all--if he had not yet heard it, which was
possible--and so ask him to lend me a few silver pieces in my need. I
knew he would welcome the chance of showing the honesty of his words,
and might well afford it. Thus would I go, after dark lest I should be
seen and he blamed, and so make onward with a lighter heart and freer hand.

So I waited a little longer in the safe recesses of the deep combe until
a great gray cloud covered all the tops of the hills above me, and I
thought it well to cross the open under its shelter to Holford Coombe,
which I did.

There I loitered again, hearing the stags belling at times across the
hollows to one another, but hardly wishful to meet with them in their
anger. I saw no man, for once I had crossed the highroad none was likely
to seek the heights in Maytime. And I think that no one would have known
me. For in my captivity my beard had grown, and my hair was longer than
its wont; and when I had seen my face in the little pool that morning, I
myself had started back from the older, bearded, and stern face that met