would win fame and fortune. He
would never return to Gablehurst until he brought with him a name
which should cause the ears of those who knew him to tingle by
reason of the fame he had won!

"Nay, but boast not of the future, my son," pleaded the mother,
with a note of anxiety in her voice; "and be not over confident.
The times are perilous, and you are but an untried youth. Boasting
is not well."

But Tom could not listen. He laughingly repeated his boast, and was
off to the stables forthwith, to pick for himself the best horses
for his ride to London. For, of course, he must first go there, to
fit himself out for his journey beyond seas, and find out where the
army of the Duke was at present to be found.

Vague rumours of the great victory had penetrated to the wilds of
Essex; but where Blenheim was, and what the victory was all about,
the rustics knew as little as "Old Kaspar" of the immortal ballad
of later days. The squires were little less vague in their ideas as
to the scope and purpose of the war. It was to abase the power of
France--so much they knew, and was unpopular with the Tories of
Jacobite leanings, for the reason that the French king was
sheltering the dethroned monarch of the Stuart line. But then the
great Duke who was winning all these victories was said to be a
stanch Tory himself; so that it was all rather confusing, and Tom
was just as ignorant and ill-informed on all these topics as the
hinds who tilled his fields. He had never cared to inform himself
of what was passing in the world, and the newspapers had always
seemed to him very dull reading.

Now, however, he wished he knew a little more; but he told himself
that he should quickly pick up everything in London. His heart beat
at the thought of seeing that wonderful city; and although he
carelessly promised his mother not to linger there long, he was by
no means sure that he would not make a good stay, and learn the
fashions of the gay world before he crossed the sea.

He was quite of the opinion that, clad in a new suit of fashionable
make, he could ruffle it with the best of the young bloods about
town. He was now all in a fever to be off. He selected for his
attendant a young groom, with whom he had long been more intimate
than his father approved. His mother in vain besought him to take
faithful old John, or at least Peter, whom they had known from
boyhood; but Tom would have nobody but young Robin, and declared
that he and Robin