h bravely. But 'Sir John Matcham' soundeth not amiss."

"Prithee, Dick, stop till I drink," said the other, pausing where a
little clear spring welled out of the slope into a gravelled basin no
bigger than a pocket. "And O, Dick, if I might come by anything to
eat!--my very heart aches with hunger."

"Why, fool, did ye not eat at Kettley?" asked Dick.

"I had made a vow--it was a sin I had been led into," stammered Matcham;
"but now, if it were but dry bread, I would eat it greedily."

"Sit ye, then, and eat," said Dick, "while that I scout a little forward
for the road." And he took a wallet from his girdle, wherein were bread
and pieces of dry bacon, and, while Matcham fell heartily to, struck
farther forth among the trees.

A little beyond there was a dip in the ground, where a streamlet soaked
among dead leaves; and beyond that, again, the trees were better grown
and stood wider, and oak and beech began to take the place of willow and
elm. The continued tossing and pouring of the wind among the leaves
sufficiently concealed the sounds of his footsteps on the mast; it was
for the ear what a moonless night is to the eye; but for all that Dick
went cautiously, slipping from one big trunk to another, and looking
sharply about him as he went. Suddenly a doe passed like a shadow
through the underwood in front of him, and he paused, disgusted at the
chance. This part of the wood had been certainly deserted, but now that
the poor deer had run, she was like a messenger he should have sent
before him to announce his coming; and instead of pushing farther, he
turned him to the nearest well-grown tree, and rapidly began to climb.

Luck had served him well. The oak on which he had mounted was one of the
tallest in that quarter of the wood, and easily out-topped its
neighbours by a fathom and a half; and when Dick had clambered into the
topmost fork and clung there, swinging dizzily in the great wind, he saw
behind him the whole fenny plain as far as Kettley, and the Till
wandering among woody islets, and in front of him, the white line of
highroad winding through the forest. The boat had been righted--it was
even now midway on the ferry. Beyond that there was no sign of man, nor
aught moving but the wind. He was about to descend, when, taking a last
view, his eye lit upon a string of moving points about the middle of the
fen. Plainly a small troop was threading the causeway, and that at a
good pace; and this gave him some c