this drear winter
season it was bare and colourless, and utterly desolate. The
outline of dark forests could be seen all around on the horizon;
but the road led over the exposed ground, where not a tree broke
the monotony of the way. Cuthbert was glad enough to have a
companion to ride by his side over the lonely waste, which looked
its loneliest in the cold radiance of the moon. He did not reply to
the strange words he had just heard, and his companion, after a
brief pause, resumed his discourse in a different tone, telling the
lad more about London and the life there than ever he had heard in
his life before. But the moral of his discourse was always the
sufferings, the wrongs, the troubles of the Roman Catholics, who
had looked for better times under Mary Stuart's son; and gradually
raising within the breast of the youth a feeling of warm sympathy
with those of his own faith, and a distrust and abhorrence of the
laws that made life well nigh impossible for the true sons of the
Church.

"Ruined in estate, too often injured in body, hated, despised,
hunted to death like beasts of the earth, what is left for us but
some great struggle after our lives and liberties?" concluded the
speaker, in his half melancholy, half ardent way. "Verily, when
things be so bad that they cannot well be worse, then truly men
begin to think that the hour of action is at hand. Be the night
never so long, the dawn comes at last. And so will our day dawn for
us--though it may dawn in clouds of smoke and vapour, and with a
terrible sound of destruction."

But these last words were hardly heard by Cuthbert, whose attention
had been attracted by the regular beat of horse hoofs upon the road
behind. Although the track was but a sandy path full of ruts and
holes, the sound travelled clearly through the still night air.
Whoever these new travellers were, they were coming along at a
brisk pace, and Cuthbert drew rein to look behind him.

"There be horsemen coming this way!" he said.

"Ay, verily there be; and moreover I mislike their looks. Honest
folks do not gallop over these bad roads in yon headlong fashion. I
doubt not they be robbers, eager to overtake and despoil us. We
must make shift to press on at the top of our speed. This is an ill
place to be overtaken. We have no chance against such numbers.
Luckily our steeds are not way worn; they have but jogged
comfortably along these many miles. Push your beast to a gallop, my
lad; there is