"Trod on his fetlock most likely," I answered. "Clumsy knave."

"Well, that huntsman knows how to use a lash, at all events, and he
will have a care in future. But how my head does ache!"

"That is likely enough," I said, laughing. "It was a shrewd knock,
and it kept you in that hole for the longest hour and a half I have
ever known."

"It does take somewhat out of the common to hurt me much," he said
simply.

"Well, by tomorrow you will be famed all over Glastonbury as the
man who fell over Cheddar cliffs and escaped by reason of lighting
on the thickest part of him," I answered.

It was a poor jest enough, but it set him laughing. I did not wish
him to say more of what had just happened, for I was puzzled about
it, and wanted to get my thoughts to work. He had spoken of the
very thing that I had been warned of, for almost had I taken the
horn from the hand of a Briton--the Welsh girl of whom he spoke
once before. I had forgotten her, for I do not think that I had
ever seen her since she came here, until now. But at this moment I
seemed to have a feeling that her face was in some way familiar to
me, though only in that half-formed way that troubles one, and I
was trying to recall how this might be.

Erpwald went off to the guest chamber where he was lodged, and
presently I found our old leech and took him to see after him. He