mselves chuckling round the darkness of the next
bend.

This was one of the children's most secret hunting-grounds, and their
particular friend, old Hobden the hedger, had shown them how to use it.
Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and
tussle among the young ash leaves as a line hung up for the minute,
nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on
among the trouts below the banks.

'We've got half a dozen,' said Dan, after a warm, wet hour. 'I vote we
go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool.'

Una nodded--most of her talk was by nods--and they crept from the gloom
of the tunnels towards the tiny weir that turns the brook into the
mill-stream. Here the banks are low and bare, and the glare of the
afternoon sun on the Long Pool below the weir makes your eyes ache.

When they were in the open they nearly fell down with astonishment. A
huge grey horse, whose tail-hairs crinkled the glassy water, was
drinking in the pool, and the ripples about his muzzle flashed like
melted gold. On his back sat an old, white-haired man dressed in a
loose glimmery gown of chain-mail. He was bare-headed, and a
nut-shaped iron helmet hung at his saddle-bow. His reins were of red
leather five or six inches deep, scalloped at the edges, and his high
padded saddle with its red girths was held fore and aft by a red
leather breastband and crupper.

'Look!' said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out.
'It's like the picture in your room--"Sir Isumbras at the Ford".'

The rider turned towards them, and his thin, long face was just as
sweet and gentle as that of the knight who carries the children in that
picture.

'They should be here now, Sir Richard,' said Puck's deep voice among
the willow-herb.

'They are here,' the knight said, and he smiled at Dan with the string
of trouts in his hand. 'There seems no great change in boys since mine
fished this water.'

'If your horse has drunk, we shall be more at ease in the Ring,' said
Puck; and he nodded to the children as though he had never magicked
away their memories a week before.

The great horse turned and hoisted himself into the pasture with a kick
and a scramble that tore the clods down rattling.

'Your pardon!' said Sir Richard to Dan. 'When these lands were mine, I
never loved that mounted men should cross the brook except by the paved
ford. But my Swallow here was thirsty, and I wished to meet you.'

'We're