"He is with a party occupied in making ladders."

"Go to him," Cuthbert said, "and tell him to withdraw quietly and make
his way here. I have an important matter on which I wish to speak to
him."

Cnut arrived in a few minutes, somewhat wondering at the message. He
brightened greatly when Cuthbert told him what he had learned.

"This is indeed important," he said. "We will lose no time in searching
the copse you speak of. You and I, together with two of my most trusty
men, with axes to clear away the brush, will do. At present a thing of
this sort had best be kept between as few as may be."

They started at once and soon came down upon the stream.

It ran at this point in a little valley, some twenty or thirty feet
deep. On the bank not far from the castle grew a small wood, and it was
in this that Cuthbert hoped to find the passage spoken of by Gurth.

The trees and brushwood were so thick that it was apparent at once that
if the passage had ever existed it had been unused for some years.

The woodmen were obliged to chop down dozens of young saplings to make
their way up from the water toward the steeper part of the bank.

The wood was some fifty yards in length, and as it was uncertain at
which point the passage had come out, a very minute search had to be
made.