ne sunbeams! A good horse beneath him, the free skies
above, a trusty comrade at his side--what could be more pleasant?
Tom drew a deep breath and fell into musing thought. One thing was
very certain: he was in danger from those enemies of his. He would
take care not to be caught like a rat in a trap. He knew a better
way than that!

In musings such as these time swiftly fled away, and soon he heard
the voices of Rosamund and her father in the house below.

Rosamund greeted him with shining eyes, and a glance of keen
curiosity and soft admiration, which he found mighty pleasant. She
at least had not harboured unkind thoughts of him, and it was very
plain that he had become the hero of her girlish dreams. She wanted
him to tell her all that had befallen him since their last meeting.
She listened with eager, breathless attention to what he had to
say; and although he spoke nothing of the one event which was
always in his thoughts, it seemed as though she half suspected that
he had been the witness of, or the partaker in, some strange and
fearsome adventure, for the colour went and came in her cheeks, and
she seemed always waiting for more each time that he paused.

She asked in a low voice if he had heard anything of the bold act
of robbery; and Tom answered that he had heard a good deal. Coming
a pace or two nearer him, she looked wistfully into his face and
asked:

"Have they told you that there was one man of very goodly height,
strong of arm and stout of heart, who dropped his mask in the heat
of the fray, so that the moonbeams smote full upon his face, which
was only blacked above and below? Did you hear that news spoken by
any?"

"I think I heard that something of that sort had befallen,"
answered Tom as carelessly as his beating heart would allow.

"But oh, sir," she asked yet more earnestly, "did any tell you that
the tall bold robber was said to favour yourself? Indeed, some say
that it must surely be you--even though you were so far away!"

Tom looked as he felt, a little startled at that.

"How heard you that, Mistress Rose?"

"Harry Gay heard it in the taverns. It is the talk in some of them.
And he heard these four bad men, who were sworn to vengeance, as
that they have a halter about your neck already, and they only wait
till they have you safe to pull it tight.

"O Tom, Tom, do not let them do you this despite! Have a care, oh,
have a care how you fall into their hands, for they are without
me