f a
digging beast.

Though the snow had drifted at the mouth and sifted in upon the floor of
this earth-cavern, yet was the air much warmer than without; and when
Lawless had struck a spark, and the dry furze bushes had begun to blaze
and crackle on the hearth, the place assumed, even to the eye, an air of
comfort and of home.

With a sigh of great contentment Lawless spread his broad hands before
the fire, and seemed to breathe the smoke.

"Here, then," he said, "is this old Lawless's rabbit-hole; pray Heaven
there come no terrier! Far I have rolled hither and thither, and here
and about, since that I was fourteen years of mine age, and first ran
away from mine abbey, with 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--an 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,
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' have 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