As he rode on slowly though cheerfully, as a man who will not tire his
horse at the beginning of a long day's journey, and knows not where he
shall pass the night, he was aware of a man on foot coming up behind him
at a slow, steady, loping, wolf-like trot, which in spite of its slowness
gained ground on him so fast, that he saw at once that the man could be no
common runner.

The man came up; and behold, he was none other than Martin Lightfoot.

"What! art thou here?" asked Hereward, suspiciously, and half cross at
seeing any visitor from the old world which he had just cast off. "How
gottest thou out of St. Peter's last night?"

Martin's tongue was hanging out of his mouth like a running hound's, but
he seemed, like a hound, to perspire through his mouth, for he answered
without the least sign of distress, without even pulling in his tongue,--

"Over the wall, the moment the Prior's back was turned. I was not going to
wait till I was chained up in some rat's-hole with a half-hundred of iron
on my leg, and flogged till I confessed that I was what I am not,--a
runaway monk."

"And why art here?"

"Because I am going with you."

"Going with me?" said Hereward; "what can I do for thee?"

"I can do for you," said Martin.