"You've started 'em off, anyhow, Bob," said another, with a low chuckling laugh.

"Be quiet, Frank Jones," whispered the leader, "and halt all. Let's know who this bold fellow is; not one of our set, I should think. Look out: he is coming this way," he added, as the voice sounded nearer.

"What's the use of saying, 'Look out,' when one can't see a dozen yards, all along of this fog?" demanded Frank.

The voice approached nearer still. The man to whom it belonged was apparently crossing the Chase from the opposite direction to that which the party was taking, and was passing by when he suddenly found himself in the strong grasp of two powerful men, who commanded him to halt.

"A nice time of night for you to be wandering about, Master Heywood," said Carter, but not in unfriendly tones.

66

"All times are alike to me when I am in my Master's work," replied the evangelist, quietly. "He worked night and day, day and night, William Carter.”

66 So you

pat?"

66

know me, do you, to come out with my name so

'Surely. I have not heard your voice so seldom but I know you well enough, friend."

"And you know who we all are here?”

"There are not many men on the country-side that will bear comparing with you forgemen," said Heywood.

"Ah, I see you know us. And you do know us. do know us. But you have not told me where you come from."

"From Westrop Brooks."

"So I guessed. Been holding a preachment there?"

I have been engaged in my Master's service there, I hope, William Carter; and I wish you were engaged in the same service, friend. You'll come to wish you had been, some day."

66

Come, stow that!" growled Bob Phillips, savagely.

"Be quiet, Bob, can't you?" interposed the leader; and then "I've got one service already; 'No man can serve two masters,'

he turned again to his captive. and one's enough for any man. you know."

“He's a bad master, I doubt, friend, that spiritual master of yours. The wages of sin is death,'" said the evangelist, boldly. "Pho! I mean Jason Brooke. You know that we are in his service; and suppose as how we have had orders to take up all trespassers ?

"There's a right of road everywhere all over the Chase, friend,” replied Heywood.

"Ah, but there's no right of voice to go screeching over it, frightening honest folks out of their wits. If you had kept your tongue between your teeth, my friend, you might have gone on quietly. And, for the matter of that, so you may now if you'll answer a question or two like an honest fellow, as I rather think you are at bottom."

"I thank you for your good opinion, William Carter, and I will answer you as far as I am permitted; and if I cannot answer you truly, I will truly say so."

"That will do, then. And, firstly, as you say in your sermons, do you know where we are bound ?”

"I might say no with a safe conscience; but, inasmuch as I can guess, I will say at once that I suppose you are going over to 'The Squirrel.'

"Right, right as a trivet, Master Heywood. Right, my friend. And I suppose there's no harm in a set of thirsty forgemen agoing to squench their drieth at a decent public-house?"

"Better to quench it with fair water, friend, or nearer home, at any rate," said Heywood.

"Every one to his taste. But suppose we are going to 'The Squirrel,' on a matter of business. You passed by "The Squirrel,' if you did not go in: is all quiet there?"

"I neither saw nor heard anything to the contrary,” replied

the preacher.

"Did you notice any light in the right-hand gable windowin the room where old Parsley lies bedrid ?"

"There were two lights in it," said the other, steadily.

"All right, then, so far. Nonsense, Phillips; you needn't be poking your elbow in my side. The Methody parson knows what them lights mean as well as you do. Eh, Master Heywood?"

“I do know what they mean; at least, I can guess," returned the preacher, as steadily as before.

"And who cares who knows it?" demanded Bob Phillips, impatiently. "Why don't you cut it short, Will ?"

"I tell you there's time enough; and I sha'n't cut it shorter than I choose. There's nothing like being safe; and I want the latest news I can get. So, Master Heywood, for another question. Are there any hawks about, do you know?"

"If you mean riding officers and such-like

"I do mean them, in coorse," interposed the questioner.

"I have heard to-day-not that I wished to be told—but I have heard that almost all the force was drawn off this afternoon to Billingsea."

Will Carter rubbed his hands with glee. "All right, boys," he cried. "I heard it was to be so ordered, but I wasn't sure. We shall be all right this time again.”

"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death,'" said the preacher, solemnly; but he was interrupted by the leader of the party :

"That will do, my friend. A very good text, no doubt: we'll have the sermon another time. And now march, boys, march. You'll not go with us, I suppose, Master Heywood ?"

"I would go with you, William Carter, much farther than to 'The Squirrel,' if I could do you any good," said the preacher, sadly.

"The best good you can do now is to be off home, Master Heywood, and keep your mouth close. You understand." And with this parting caution the preacher was released, and his late captors went on their way.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

AT "THE SQUIRREL."

On the borders of the Chase, and within two miles of the great house of "The Hurlocks," also equidistant from the Priory, was the ancient hostel of "The Squirrel." It was a rambling old building, with the date 1506 carved in a block of heart-of-oak which surmounted its roomy porch. Originally it was a farmhouse belonging to the Priory; but on the dissolution of that monastic establishment the farm was severed from the larger estate, and became the property of a well-to-do yeoman of the eighth Harry's reign. In his family it continued nearly two hundred years, and might have remained longer if the last of the line in possession had not paid more attention to drinking, card-playing, horse-racing, and cock-fighting than to honest husbandry. Then the end came-the end of prosperity and the beginning of ruin. The young farmer, in short, went to the bad, as we say nowadays, and the farm-house was severed from the farm, which became part and parcel of the Hurlock estate. Then the old house sunk into comparative neglect and poverty, being let out into separate dwellings for labourers on the estate, until either an enterprising or desperate man-George Parsley by name-bought the premises "for a song," turned out the poor tenants, obtained a licence, converted the building into a house

of entertainment for man and beast, and put over the great porch a gaudily painted sign-board, representing a squirrel, a good many times larger than life, seated on its haunches and holding an enormous nut between its fore-paws.

It might very well have been a source of wonder as to whence the landlord of "The Squirrel" could hope to obtain customers for the good ale he announced himself prepared to serve; much more as to where the beasts were to come from which he was desirous of entertaining To be sure, the house stood handy to a public road which bounded the Hurlock estate at that point; but not many travellers were known to pass that way, and the scanty, scattered population around could scarcely have brought grist enough to the publican's mill to keep it going. Parsley, however, was not disconcerted. He hired a few acres of land, which, with the help of his son and one serving-man, he fairly cultivated; and, as he was a sober fellow himself, he managed, at any rate, to make both ends meet, and kept his own counsel. Meanwhile he kept his house in decent repair, shutting up such of its rooms as were not wanted, or occasionally using them as granaries for his threshed corn, and taking care that the stables -which in the former days of farming prosperity were roomy enough for a small troop of cavalry, and which seemed a world too wide for the pair of horses that sufficed for his work-were kept in readiness for the "beasts" which seemed never to come, excepting, indeed, once a year, when an inundation of Welshmen on hardy mountain ponies, accompanying droves of equally hardy runts, penetrated to the southward cattle fairs, and spread themselves all the country round.

In process of time George Parsley grew old, so also did his wife; and then, after a few more years, the wife died, and old George, having almost lost the use of his limbs, was confined first to his own bed-chamber, and then almost entirely to his bed; so that his son, George Parsley the second (Young George, as he