unting dog upon the scent, inquired his way of
every tree, and studied out their path as though he were conning a ship
among dangers.

About a mile into the forest they came to a place where several ways
met, under a grove of lofty and contorted oaks. Even in the narrow
horizon of the falling snow, it was a spot that could not fail to be
recognised; and Lawless evidently recognised it with particular delight.

"Now, Master Richard," said he, "an y'are not too proud to be the guest
of a man who is neither a gentleman by birth nor so much as a good
Christian, I can offer you a cup of wine and a good fire to melt the
marrow in your frozen bones."

"Lead on, Will," answered Dick. "A cup of wine and a good fire! Nay, I
would go a far way round to see them."

Lawless turned aside under the bare branches of the grove, and, walking
resolutely forward for some time, came to a steepish hollow or den, that
had now drifted a quarter full of snow. On the verge, a great beech-tree
hung, precariously rooted; and here the old outlaw, pulling aside some
bushy underwood, bodily disappeared into the earth.

[Illustration: _And Lawless, keeping half a step in front of his
companion and holding his head forward like a hunting-dog upon the
scent, ... studied out their path_]

The beech had, in some violent gale, been half uprooted, and had torn
up a considerable stretch of turf; and it was under this that old
Lawless had dug out his forest hiding-place. The roots served him for
rafters, the turf was his thatch; for walls and floor he had his mother
the earth. Rude as it was, the hearth in one corner, blackened by fire,
and the presence in another of a large oaken chest well fortified with
iron, showed it at one glance to be the den of a man, and not the burrow
of 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