y
travelling with the troopers that night? Could they have got wind
in some mysterious way of what was afoot, and have followed to seek
his ruin? Tom had reason to know that these men bore him a grudge,
and had threatened revenge, and that they hated Lord Claud equally
with himself. Harry Gay had warned him that they were dangerous
fellows; and Tom had not lived all this while in London without
being well aware that there were ways and means of obtaining
information, and that every man had his price. If they suspected
him to be concerned in the robbery, they would take every possible
means to hunt him down.

Tom set his teeth as this thought came to him. To be the victim of
the spite of a party of low villains, who were only fit themselves
for the hangman's halter! The thought was not to be borne. Better,
far better, the life of the forest with Captain Jack! There at
least he would be free of this persecution; and perhaps the day
would come when he should find his foes at his mercy, and take his
revenge upon them!

A very little brooding of this sort sufficed to set Tom's hot blood
boiling. He had no wish to join himself with freebooters and law
breakers; but if they hunted him beyond a certain point, he would
not hesitate to fly to those who would give him safety and a
welcome. He had heard plenty of tales by this time of impoverished
gentlemen, disbanded soldiers, falsely-accused persons of all
sorts, who had been forced to fly to the freedom of the forest, and
live as they could. Since the days of bold Robin Hood there had
always been outlaws of the better, as well as the worse, sort. Tom
had no wish to throw aside his code of morality and honour; but if
men would not let him live as a peaceable citizen, they should
suffer for it!

To be cooped up in dusty streets amid hot brick walls during these
long beautiful summer days, was a thing not to be endured. Go he
would and must; and if he could not find work for himself in the
secret service, why not enter a secret service of another kind, and
teach the authorities not to hound a man too far?

This was Tom's method of reasoning--evading the question of his own
guilt by the excuse that he only took what was his by right. It is
easy to believe what one wishes to believe, and Tom had never found
it hard to persuade himself that what he desired was the best
course of action to pursue.

How cool and fresh the green glades of the forest would look in the
glancing Ju