So saying, Dick took once more to his heels, keeping in the margin of
the thicket and looking briskly about him as he went. At a good pace he
rattled out of the dell, and came again into the more open quarters of
the wood. To the left a little eminence appeared, spotted with golden
gorse, and crowned with a black tuft of firs.

"I shall see from there," he thought, and struck for it across a heathy
clearing.

He had gone but a few yards, when Matcham touched him on the arm, and
pointed. To the eastward of the summit there was a dip, and, as it were,
a valley passing to the other side; the heath was not yet out; all the
ground was rusty, like an unscoured buckler, and dotted sparingly with
yews; and there, one following another, Dick saw half a score green
jerkins mounting the ascent, and marching at their head, conspicuous by
his boar-spear, Ellis Duckworth in person. One after another gained the
top, showed for a moment against the sky, and then dipped upon the
farther side, until the last was gone.

Dick looked at Matcham with a kindlier eye.

"So y'are to be true to me, Jack?" he asked. "I thought ye were of the
other party."

Matcham began to sob.

"What cheer!" cried Dick. "Now the saints behold us! would ye snivel for
a word?"

"Ye hurt me," sobbed Matcham. "Ye hurt me when ye threw me down. Y'are a
coward to abuse your strength."

"Nay, that is fool's talk," said Dick, roughly. "Y' had no title to my
windac, Master John. I would 'a' done right to have well basted you. If
ye go with me, ye must obey me; and so, come."

Matcham had half a thought to stay behind; but, seeing that Dick
continued to scour full-tilt towards the eminence and not so much as
looked across his shoulder, he soon thought better of that, and began to
run in turn. But the ground was very difficult and steep; Dick had
already a long start, and had, at any rate, the lighter heels, and he
had long since come to the summit, crawled forward through the firs, and
ensconced himself in a thick tuft of gorse, before Matcham, panting like
a deer, rejoined him, and lay down in silence by his side.

Below, in the bottom of a considerable valley, the short cut from
Tunstall hamlet wound downwards to the ferry. It was well beaten, and
the eye followed it easily from point to point. Here it was bordered by
open glades; there the forest closed upon it; every hundred yards it ran
beside an ambush. Far down the path, the sun shone on seven steel
s