avoiding all frequented ways near which Basil might be lurking.
Loyalty and treason, lodged in his heart, fought a dire fight, and,
thanks to the vision of a pretty face, treason was rather badly wounded.

Chapter IX.

THE HUNT.

By the time he had reached home, Windybank was persuaded that treason
would bring no grist to his mill. Weak-kneed and inclined to evil, he
was yet an Englishman, and in his heart he felt that all the kings that
ever ruled in Spain were too feeble a power to hold valiant little
England in a conqueror's grip. The Jesuit's plot was feasible, and, as
expounded by Father Jerome, promised a measure of success. The master
of Dean Tower was prepared to acknowledge that the forest might be
fired. What then? Would Philip beat England on the sea? The balance
of numbers would be on his side; but what of the deeds of Drake and his
brother-captains? They were men who laughed when the odds were against
them. "No," said Andrew decisively, "the Spaniard is not yet born who
can trounce that bullet-headed man of Devon. Philip's men can hardly
land in England. If they do--!" The young man shrugged his shoulders
expressively; there were bonny fighters for the shore as well as for
the sea!

Such was the power of a pair of blue eyes, when the black ones were not
at hand to counteract their witchery, that Windybank determined
straightway to play the honest man that he had determined to become.
He whistled for his dogs, called to his groom, got him upon a sturdy
pony, and hurried away to the hunt. He was late, but he knew that the
quarry was to be roused in the Abbot's Wood, a close belt of forest
lying betwixt Littledean and Blakeney, so he made for the old,
grass-grown Roman road that ran straight through the heart of the
woodland, and, ere he had ridden two miles, he could discern horn and
"halloo!" away to the right towards the Speech.[1] His hounds heard
the welcome sounds, gave mouth in answer, and dashed off through the
green, waving sea of bracken. And master and groom, their forester
blood running like a stimulating wine through them, put spurs to their
steeds and raced off on the heels of the dogs.

After very little riding, the rapidly swelling volume of sound told the
two hunters that the chase was coming straight in their own direction,
and hardly had they come to this conclusion when a fresh and fiercer
baying from their dogs and a ripping and crashing in the undergrowth
brought