ctly. He dashed out of the yard without another word.

And she spurred her horse, and clattered out after him.

He ran as fast as her horse could canter, and soon took her all round
the house; and while he ran, his black gypsy eyes were glancing in
every direction.

When they got to the lawn at the back of the house, he halted a moment,
and said quietly,--

"Here they be."

He pointed to some enormous footsteps in the snow, and bade her notice
that they commenced at a certain glass door belonging to the house, and
that they all pointed outwards. The lawn was covered with such marks,
but the Scamp followed those his intelligence had selected, and they
took him through a gate, and down a long walk, and into the park. Here
no other feet had trodden that morning except those Tom Leicester was
following.

"This is our game," said he. "See, there be six footsteps; and, now I
look, this here track is Squire Gaunt's. I know his foot in the snow
among a hundred. Bless your heart, I've often been out shooting with
Squire Gaunt, and lost him in the woods, and found him again by tracking
him on dead leaves, let alone snow. I say, wasn't they useless idiots?
Couldn't tell ye how to run into a man, and snow on the ground! Why, you
can track a hare to her form, and a rat to his hole,--let alone such big
game as this, with a hoof like a frying-pan,--in the snow."

"Oh, do not talk; let us make haste," panted Kate.

"Canter away!" replied the Scamp.

She cantered on, and he ran by her side.

"Shall I not tire you?" said she.

The _mauvais sujet_ laughed at her.

"Tire _me?_ Not over this ground. Why, I run with the hounds, and mostly
always in at the death; but that is not altogether speed: ye see I know
Pug's mind. What! don't you know _me_? I'm Tom Leicester. Why, I know
you: I say, you are a good-hearted one, you are."

"Oh, no! no!" sighed Kate.

"Nay, but you are," said Tom. "I saw you take Harrowden Brook that day,
when the rest turned tail; and that is what I call having a good heart.
Gently, Mistress, here,--this is full of rabbit-holes. I seen Sir
Ralph's sorrel mare break her leg in a moment in one of these. Shot her
dead that afternoon, a did, and then b'iled her for the hounds. She'd
often follow at their tails; next hunting-day she ran inside their
bellies. Ha! ha! ha!"

"Oh, don't laugh! I am in agony!"

"Why, what is up, Mistress?" asked the young savage, lowering his voice.
"'Murder,' says you; but t