pany if you chance
to fall upon their haunts, and they make you welcome. I've spent
more than one night amongst them, and never a bit the worse. Men
must live; and if the folks in authority will outlaw them, why,
they must jog along then as best they may. I don't think they do
more harm than they can well help."

Mistress Devenish shook her head in silence over the rather wild
talk of her son, but she said nothing. She was used to Jack's ways,
and she was proud of his spirit, though afraid sometimes that it
would lead him into trouble. She had noted of late that he had been
unwontedly absent from home during the long evenings of the summer
just gone by, and had wondered what took him off, for he seldom
gave account of himself. She noted, too, that he spoke in a very
different fashion from others of the robber band that was such a
terror to the village folks. She did not know whether or not to put
these two facts together as connected with each other; but she
listened eagerly to all he said on the subject, trying to discover
what might be the meaning of this strange leniency of opinion.
"It is different for you, brother--they owe you no grudge," said
Joan, with a slight shiver; whilst the farmer broke in roughly:

"Tut, tut, Jack! what mean you by trying to make common cause with
the ruffians who would have carried your sister off as a prey of
that graceless scamp well-called Devil's Own? I marvel to hear such
words from you. You should know better."

"They are not all brutes like Devil's Own," muttered Jack in a low
tone; but he did not speak aloud, for the fashion of the day
forbade the young to argue with the old, or children to answer back
when their parents spoke to them in reproof.

But Paul was still resolved that he would be the messenger to carry
to the Priory that day the two fat capons the worthy mistress had
in readiness for the prior's table. They had been bespoken some
time, and could be no longer delayed. Paul was weary of an idle
life, and eager to see something of the country in which he found
himself. He was in comfortable quarters enough at the farm; but he
was growing stronger each day, and was beginning to fret against
the fetters which held him from straying far from the farm.

He did not much believe in the lasting anger of the robber band. He
knew that those gentlemen would have other matters on hand than
that of revenging themselves upon him for his frustration of their
captain's design. H