and looking after him till the
slight figure was lost to sight in the darkness.

"There goes a man who by his face might have a great future before
him," mused the priest. "It is with such faces as that that men
have gone to prison and to death."

Cuthbert bent his steps towards the bridge, interested and excited
by his recent adventure, his thoughts directed into a new channel,
his memory recalling the first companion of his lonely journey, and
the charm of that companion's personality and address. So many
other things had passed since, impressions had jostled so quickly
one upon the other, that he had scarce thought again of Master
Robert Catesby or the purse he had to claim from him. His new
uncle's liberality had made him rich, and a certain natural reserve
had held him silent in his Puritan relative's house about any
person not likely to find favour in Martin Holt's estimation. He
had been equally reticent about his strange adventure with the
gipsies, though he scarce knew why he should not speak of that.
But, as a matter of fact, every day brought with it such a crowd of
new impressions that the earlier ones had already partially faded
from his mind.

But the words of the priest had awakened a new train of thought.
Cuthbert resolved not to delay longer the reclamation of his own
property. He spoke to Cherry that same evening about his lost
purse, giving her a brief account of his ride across Hammerton
Heath, and she was eager for him to ask his own, lest he should
lose it altogether.

"For gay gallants are not always to be trusted, for all that they
look so fine and speak so fair," she said, nodding her pretty curly
head, an arch smile in her big gray eyes. "I have heard my father
say so a hundred times. I would go quickly and claim mine own
again. But tell me the rest of the adventure. What didst thou, left
thus alone upon the lone heath? I trow it was an unmanly and
unmannerly act to leave thee thus. What befell thee then?"

Cuthbert looked round cautiously; but there was no one listening to
the chatter of this pair of idlers in the window. Mistress Susan's
voice was heard below scolding the serving wench, and Martin Holt
was poring over some big ledger whilst Jemima called over the
figures of a heap of bills. Keziah was at her spinning wheel, which
hummed merrily in the red firelight; and Cherry was seizing
advantage of her aunt's absence to chatter instead of work.

Cherry had from the first been Cuth