“A foul stroke, Master Gymbert,” said Sighard, going up to the marshal; “a foul spear as ever was!  Had it not been for his man yonder, you had fairly spitted my friend the paladin.  Ken you that?”

“How was I to know that he was going to run in?” said Gymbert, trying to bluster.  “He crossed my horse, and it is his own fault if he was in the way of the spear.”

“One would think that you had no knowledge of woodcraft,” said Sighard, with high disdain.  “Heard one ever of a mounted man coming in on a boar while a spear on foot was before him?  Man, one needs eyes in the back of one’s head if you are about.”

Then he turned to the Mercian thane.

“Is this the way of Gymbert as a rule? or has he only been suffered to come out today?”

“A man gets careless at these times,” answered the thane.  “Anyway he is like to lose a good horse, and I will not say that it does not serve him right.

“It was a near thing for the Frank, Gymbert, let me tell you.”

“Well, I am sorry,” said Gymbert gruffly.  “I was a careless fool, if that will suit you.”

“A mighty poor sort of apology that.”

“Well, then,” said Gymbert stiffly, and as I thought somewhat ashamed of himself, “I will ask pardon for a bit of heedlessness in all truth.  Mayhap I did ride in somewhat over jealously.”

Now by that time I was myself again, and told him to think no more of it, so far as I was concerned.  Whereon he blamed himself again more heartily, and so went to see to his horse, which was past use again for that and many a long day.  Sighard turned away with a growl, and Erling said nothing, for the matter was ended for the time.

As for the boar, it was Sighard’s spear which he took with him.  The thane had got it home in his flank as he gored the horse, but to little effect.  Then the boar had taken to the thickets, and there the foresters had slain him.

Gymbert sent a man for a fresh horse, and so rode away without another word to us.  The noise from the nets went on, shifting across the little valley as the kings went from place to place in search of fresh game at the barrier.

“Well,” said Sighard, looking after Gymbert as he went, “if yon thane had it in his mind to spear you, or to ride over you, or anywise to send you on the tusks of the boar, he went the right way to work.  He rode straight at you from behind, as if he meant it.”

“But for his man here the paladin had gone home on a litter, feet foremost, for certain,” said the Mercian.  “I do not know what came to Gymbert, for he knows more of woodcraft than most of us.  Maybe he thought it his boar by all right, and was over hasty.”

“A jealous hunter is no pleasant companion,” answered Sighard, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.  “Well, there is no harm done, but to the poor steed yonder.”