He had been led into sc.r.a.pes, he had done things for which he was sorry, and he was even now suffering the consequences of doing what was wrong, but instead of attempting to get out of the difficulty by twisting and turning and prevarication and falsehood, he always endeavoured to escape by going straightforward, boldly telling the truth, and, if needs be, doubling his fist, or drawing his sword and fighting his way out. Thus the sophistries and arguments which he heard brought forward by the Romish priest, far from having any effect upon him, made him more than ever inclined to oppose the system which Rome endeavours to spread over the world. He still waited on in the hope that the two guests would take their departure, but they seemed in no way disposed to do so, and at length Mr Harwood remarked that the shades of evening were approaching, and that he would have some difficulty in finding his way through the forest, if he delayed much longer. This hint was too clear not to be taken, and, very reluctantly, he at length rose to pay his adieus to Alethea. She wished him good-bye, expressing a hope to see him on his return to Nottingham, in a friendly tone, but gave him no opportunity of saying any thing to her alone. He bowed to the two other guests, and Mr Harwood accompanied him to the door, pointing out to him the way he was to take to reach the spot where he had left his horse.

"Can she be aware of the character of those people," thought Jack to himself, as he walked on through the wood, "or the plots which, it seems, are hatching? I wish Mr Harwood had nothing to do with them! I wonder how that he, a Protestant gentleman, can engage in such a matter.

I hope that I shall hear nothing of them where I am going; and I heartily wish I had not helped the enemies of our good Protestant king by conveying those letters! Still, what has been done cannot be undone; and having been trusted by Mr Harwood, I cannot attempt to give information of what, I fear, is taking place, even though I might enable him to escape. I suspect those two men I met just now are engaged in it. I like neither of them, least of all that hypocritical-looking Master Stirthesoul, as he called himself. I wish Pearson had nothing to do with him. Indeed, Master Pearson evidently knows a good deal about the plot; and I should be thankful if I was free of him also. But what can I now do? I am in his power; and if I were to go back to Nottingham, I should be in difficulty about that poaching affair; while, if I offend him, he can at any moment inform against me for delivering those letters. Well, I must go through with it, and wait patiently for the result."

Such thoughts occupied his mind till he reached the clump of trees within which he expected to find Burdale and the horses. The shades of evening were already approaching, and a thick ma.s.s of brushwood, which grew outside, prevented him from seeing into the interior of the wood.

He had to walk round some distance indeed before he could find an entrance. More than once he gave a whistle, the sign agreed on, without receiving any answer. The idea occurred to him that Burdale had turned traitor, or, weary of waiting for him, had gone back with the horses.

At length he shouted, "Master Burdale! Master Burdale! where are you?"

He was at last relieved by seeing the man leading the horses towards him.

"Why, Mr Deane, you shouted loud enough to wake up Robin Hood and his merry men from their graves!" said his guide, as he came up. "It's to be hoped no strangers were pa.s.sing whom we should not like to meet! You forgot the side of the wood where you left me. However, let us mount now and be off, for the night promises to be dark, and I should like to get into a part of the forest I know better than this while we have a little twilight to guide us."

A ride through a forest in the dusk is a difficult matter, and dangerous withal, from the outstretched boughs overhead, and slippery roots, and holes beneath. Fully three hours were occupied in reaching the Hagg.

"Go in!" said Burdale to Jack, as they came in front of the old building. "I will take the horses round to the stables; and you will be welcome there."

"I hope I may not see any more of the ghosts!" said Jack: "I had enough of them last night."

"As to that, I don't know," answered Burdale; "but do you follow the old people's example, and let them alone, and they will let you alone, depend upon that!"

Some loud groans were heard above Jack's head as he spoke, and he could not help starting, so melancholy and deep sounding were they. The next instant, however, he recollected the old woman's description of the haunted oak, and, looking round at the venerable tree, he had little doubt that the noise was produced by some branches moved by the wind, or else the pa.s.sage of air through its hollow trunk.

Jack slept too soundly during the night to hear the conversation of the ghosts; but, on the following morning at his early breakfast, ere he and his guide took their departure, the old woman a.s.sured him that they had been talking as usual, making, if possible, even more uproar than she had ever before heard.

"But what was it all about?" asked Jack; "could not you hear that?"

"No, no," she answered; "maybe they spoke in a tongue I cannot understand, for, though often and often I've listened, not one word could I ever make out!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

RESIDENCE IN THE FENS OF LINCOLNSHIRE.

The raw wind from the fens was driving the mist before it, and bending ma.s.ses of willows, bulrushes, and tall sedges all one way--and that way right against the faces of Deane and his guide, when they commenced their devious course across the marshes, within which Master Pearson's farm was situated. A dead level was before them, broken here and there only by a group of willows, or occasionally a few small trees which had taken root on patches of firmer ground than that with which they were surrounded, otherwise the horizon was as clear as that of the ocean.

The whole country had a raw, cold, damp, and agueish look about it. It was any thing but tempting.

"Where is the farm?" asked Jack, as he pulled up for an instant to survey the unpromising country before him.

"Some miles on," answered Burdale. "It's lucky you have a man with you who knows the country, or you would have a bad job to get over it. If you were to ride straight on now, you would be up to your horse's ears in slush, with very little chance of ever getting out again alive.

Come, I'll show you the way; follow me. Don't turn either to the right hand or to the left, or you will get into trouble!"

Saying this, Burdale spurred on his somewhat unwilling horse, who seemed to understand the difficulties of the way before him. Here and there, and scattered thickly on every side, were large patches of water, sometimes expanding into the size of lakes, while others were mere pools and puddles. Now a patch of reeds was to be seen. In some places soft velvety gra.s.s, growing over, however, the most treacherous spots; now a group of low willows, scarcely six feet high; now a bed of osiers, barely three feet above the surface. There was scarcely a spot which offered any promise of ground sufficiently hard to enable the travellers to move out of the snail's pace at which they had hitherto been obliged to proceed.

"Well, this is about the worst country I ever rode over!" Jack could not help exclaiming.

"Now, don't be grumbling, Mr Deane; if it affords you shelter, you may be grateful for it: and the country's not so bad after all. You should just see the pike which are caught in the rivers! they are larger than any you will see in the Trent, I have a notion. There are sheep too here: larger and bigger animals, though somewhat awkward in their gait, than you will see throughout England; but they yield very l.u.s.ty wool, let me tell you. And though, perhaps, you don't think much of the willows, of which you have pa.s.sed a goodly number, they're very useful to the people who live here. There is an old proverb they have got--'A willow will buy a horse before an oak will buy a saddle.'"

Burdale, indeed, seemed to have a good deal of information to give about the fens; and Jack could not help thinking that he must belong to the country, or, at all events, have lived a considerable time in it.

Indeed, no one but a person thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the ground could have managed to find his way across it. The water was soon over the horses' fetlocks, and here and there up to their knees. More than once Jack could not help fearing that his guide had made a mistake, and that he was leading him into dangerous country; but he did not wish to show any suspicion of his judgment, and made no remark. Again the horses rose up out of the slough across which they had been wading and enjoyed for a short time some hard ground; but they soon had to leave it, to wade on as before. On every side was heard the loud croaking of frogs; their heads poked up in all the shallower marshes, with the object, it seemed, of observing the travellers, and then their croaking became louder than ever, as if they were amusing themselves by talking about them.

"We call those animals 'Holland-waits,'" observed Burdale. "Their king must look upon himself as fortunate, for he has got a large number of subjects; but they're not so bad as the midges. If you were to cross where we are on a hot day, with the sun broiling down on your head, you would wish you had a thick net over your face, for they do bite mortal hard!"

Burdale's horse seemed better accustomed to the country than was Jack's.

After having gone a considerable distance, he left Jack some way behind. The marks of the horse's feet had immediately been lost, by the spongy ground returning to its former state. Jack, however, thought there could be no difficulty in pushing on directly behind him. He had not, however, gone far before he found that, instead of following Burdale's direction to turn neither to the right nor left, he had by some means got off the track. His horse began to flounder, and the more he floundered the more difficult it was to extricate himself. Deeper and deeper he sank into the mire, till Jack, fearing that he might lose him altogether, shouted out to Burdale. Burdale heard his voice at length, and hurried back to his a.s.sistance. Jack had already got off his horse into the mud, hoping in that way to relieve the poor animal, but it did but little good, and he himself was also sticking fast!

"Here, catch hold of the end of this rope!" exclaimed Burdale, as he threw one which was secured to his saddlebow. "I will haul you out; and then, maybe, we will get the horse free. You could not have followed my advice, or this would never have happened."

Happily, Jack soon reached firm ground, and then he and Burdale together managed to get out the unfortunate horse.

"I must not in future let you get a foot behind me, Master Deane," said Burdale. "You see that a man can as easily be lost in this fen-country as he could in a big forest, and now we must make the best of our way onward; the evening is advancing, and the night is growing desperately cold. It will require some good liquor to warm up our veins again."

As soon as they got on dry ground, Burdale, with a whisp of dry hay and gra.s.s, wiped down the horse's legs, and made him look in a more respectable condition than the mud of the marsh had left him in.

Burdale, standing up in his stirrups, looked round in every direction to ascertain that no one was approaching.

"We're getting near Master Pearson's country," he observed, "and, as there are some sharp eyes on the look-out for him, we must take care not to betray his abode."

Hour after hour pa.s.sed by, and still they seemed to have made but little progress across this inhospitable-looking country. Now again a few mounds were seen just rising above the ground, which, Burdale told his companion, were the huts of the inhabitants.

"Well, what sort of people can live here?" asked Jack.

"An odd sort, I must own; something between fish and geese. They must be waders, at all events. In some places they have boats in which they can get about: however, every place has its uses, and so has this, you will find out, before you have been here long!"

At length, as the sun was about to sink beneath the long straight line behind their backs, Jack saw before them what looked like a clump or two of trees which stood on a piece of ground a few feet above the dead level which surrounded it. Objects, too, seemed to be moving about it, which he at length discovered to be horses and cattle. A more perfect Rosamond's labyrinth could scarcely have been contrived than that to which the path they now followed led. Before, however, they came in sight of the bower, they heard the lowing of cows and the barking of watch-dogs, and Jack, who by this time was very hungry, even thought that he sniffed a savoury odour of cooking in the damp air, that mightily urged him forward. At length, they saw before them a large rambling cottage, with dairy-buildings adjoining it, standing on a firm piece of pasture-land that formed a green peninsula rising above the black fens they had just been traversing. A row of poplars behind it, and a plantation on either side, shut it in from any one pa.s.sing at a short distance. There was also a kitchen and flower-garden in front, and considerable care had evidently been taken to keep the ground around clean and fit for walking.

"You go in, and give your letter to Dame Pearson, while I take the horses to the stables," said Burdale. "You will find it all right, for she will know well that no one could find his way here without a trustworthy guide."

Jack had expected to find a somewhat rough, and perhaps ill-favoured, dame the wife of Master Pearson. Greatly surprised was he, therefore, when, on opening the door, he was received by a remarkably attractive, neatly-dressed woman, with a pleasant smile on her countenance, and agreeable manners, superior even to those of many ladies he had met.

"You are welcome here, Mr Deane, as a friend of my husband!" she said.

"We live a secluded life, but shall be glad to see you as long as you can remain. And perhaps you will find some amus.e.m.e.nt in the sports of our fen-country. Ned Burdale will be able to show them to you as well as most people; but we are not likely to be alone, for my husband tells me that several persons are coming here, and I have been making the best preparation in my power to receive them. My little girl Elizabeth and I will soon get supper ready for you, and make you as welcome as we can.

After your hard day's ride you will then be glad to go to bed, for it is a trying country to a stranger. We came here most of the way by water, but it was bad enough even then; and I am told that coming across from inland it's still worse."

On entering the sitting-room, Jack found a fair, pretty-looking little girl, of about fourteen or fifteen years of age, busily employed in spinning, so busy indeed that she did not stop even when she rose from her seat to make him a courtesy as he entered.

"Ah, yes, Elizabeth is always at work," said Dame Pearson; "it is one of the secrets of her happiness, never to be idle from morning till night.

To be sure we have plenty to do, and not many people to do it out in this place, and so a good deal falls to our lot--but come, Elizabeth, we will go and prepare the supper for Mr Deane and Ned Burdale, who has come with him; and, perhaps before it is ready, others may make their appearance."

Saying this, she, followed by the little girl, glided from the room, leaving Jack to his own reflections. He had not been left alone long before a knock was heard at the door, and Dame Pearson hurried through the room to open it. As she did so, a tall dark man, in a rough riding-suit, with pistols in his belt and a sword by his side, entered the house with the air of a person accustomed to consider himself at home wherever he might be. After exchanging a few words with the dame, while she returned to the kitchen he entered the room, and, seating himself in a large arm-chair, stretched out his legs, without taking any notice of Jack, who sat before him, while he commenced tapping his boot with the end of his sword, as if lost in thought. At length he condescended to take a glance at his companion.

"Not long arrived in this part of the world, lad, I suppose?" he said, in a tone which showed he was very indifferent as to what answer he might receive. "It is possible that you may pa.s.s your time pleasantly enough here, if you are not troubled with the ague, and are fond of the music of frogs and wild-ducks. From what part of the world do you come, I ask?"

"I last came from the borders of Scotland; a pretty long ride too!"

"Ah!" exclaimed the stranger; "what matter brought you south?"

"My own good pleasure," answered Jack, not liking the tone of voice of the speaker. "You will excuse me if I do not explain the reason for my movements until we are further acquainted."

"Spoken like a sensible youth!" remarked the stranger. "I will ask no further questions then, though I suspect you have no cause to be ashamed of whatever you are about."