the sacrist's gold chain and a mass-book that
I sold for four marks. I have been in England and France and Burgundy,
and in Spain, too, on a pilgrimage for my poor soul; and upon the sea,
which is no man's country. But here is my place, Master Shelton. This is
my native land, this burrow in the earth! Come rain or wind--and whether
it's April, and the birds all sing, and the blossoms fall about my
bed--or whether it's winter, and I sit alone with my good gossip the
fire, and robin redbreast twitters in the woods--here, is my church and
market, and my wife and child. It's here I come back to, and it's here,
so please the saints, that I would like to die."

"'Tis a warm corner, to be sure," replied Dick, "and a pleasant, and a
well hid."

"It had need to be," returned Lawless, "for an they found it, Master
Shelton, it would break my heart. But here," he added, burrowing with
his stout fingers in the sandy floor, "here is my wine cellar; and ye
shall have a flask of excellent strong stingo."

Sure enough, after but a little digging, he produced a big leathern
bottle of about a gallon, nearly three-parts full of a very heady and
sweet wine; and when they had drunk to each other comradely, and the
fire had been replenished and blazed up again, the pair lay at full
length, thawing and steaming, and divinely warm.

"Master Shelton," observed the outlaw, "y' 'ave had two mischances this
last while, and y'are like to lose the maid--do I take it aright?"

"Aright!" returned Dick, nodding his head.

"Well, now," continued Lawless, "hear an old fool that hath been
nigh-hand everything, and seen nigh-hand all! Ye go too much on other
people's errands, Master Dick. Ye go on Ellis's; but he desireth rather
the death of Sir Daniel. Ye go on Lord Foxham's; well--the saints
preserve him!--doubtless he meaneth well. But go ye upon your own, good
Dick. Come right to the maid's side. Court her, lest that she forget
you. Be ready; and when the chance shall come, off with her at the
saddle-bow."

"Ay, but, Lawless, beyond doubt she is now in Sir Daniel's own mansion,"
answered Dick.

"Thither, then, go we," replied the outlaw.

Dick stared at him.

"Nay, I mean it," nodded Lawless. "And if y'are of so little faith, and
stumble at a word, see here!"

And the outlaw, taking a key from about his neck, opened the oak chest,
and dipping and groping deep among its contents, produced first a
friar's robe, and next a girdle of rope; an