ping. "What make ye after me? Stand
off!"

"I will follow an I please," said Matcham. "This wood is free to me."

"Stand back, by'r Lady!" returned Dick, raising his bow.

"Ah, y' are a brave boy!" retorted Matcham. "Shoot!"

Dick lowered his weapon in some confusion.

"See here," he said. "Y' have done me ill enough. Go, then. Go your way
in fair wise; or, whether I will or not, I must even drive you to it."

"Well," said Matcham doggedly, "y' are the stronger. Do your worst. I
shall not leave to follow thee, Dick, unless thou makest me," he added.

Dick was almost beside himself. It went against his heart to beat a
creature so defenceless; and, for the life of him, he knew no other way
to rid himself of this unwelcome and, as he began to think, perhaps
untrue companion.

"Y' are mad, I think," he cried. "Fool-fellow, I am hasting to your
foes; as fast as foot can carry me, go I thither."

"I care not, Dick," replied the lad. "If y' are bound to die, Dick,
I'll die too. I would liefer go with you to prison than to go free
without you."

"Well," returned the other, "I may stand no longer prating. Follow me,
if ye must; but if ye play me false, it shall but little advance you,
mark ye that. Shalt have a quarrel in thine inwards, boy."

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 unsecured 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!"