ases of mistaken identity, and did not even care to waste time
over a close inquiry into circumstances; whilst the bystanders were
raving in indignant sympathy, perfectly convinced that it was all
the work of the conspirators themselves, to try to throw their own
guilt upon the innocent, and by no means sure that their own turn
might not come next.

When Jacob was free, he turned to the King's counsellors and said:

"If it please you gentlemen to fall upon and make away with a
notable band of outlaws and robbers, who have long made the terror
of the southern roads, they be all beneath your very hand
today--gathered together in an old barge not far above Lambeth,
where they be waiting the issue of this day's work, knowing far
more about it than peaceable and well-minded men should do. Tyrrel
is the name of the leader, and he and the best part of his band
will hold high revel there this night. They will fall an easy prey
in your hands if it please you to send and take them."

The crowd shouted in delight. There was no love lost between the
citizens of London and those freebooters who made all travel so
perilous, and the name of Tyrrel was widely known and widely
feared. The counsellors conferred together awhile and asked many
questions of Jacob, and then they released him with courteous words
of regret, intimating that if good came of this hunt after the
outlaws he should not lose his reward.

His father lost no time in getting him safely home, and questioning
him closely as to how he came to find himself in such a
predicament; but all he answered was that he and Cuthbert had been
about a good deal together, and that they had been mistaken for one
another. As for Cuthbert, he was safe enough, but would remain in
hiding for some few weeks. He was innocent of all complicity in the
plot; but his carelessness had caused him to be suspected of some
knowledge of it, and suspicion at a moment of popular frenzy was
almost as fatal as actual guilt. When the real culprits had been
discovered and had paid the penalty of their crime, smaller persons
would be safe once more. Silence and obscurity were the safest
shields for the present, and to no living soul did he reveal the
secret of Cuthbert's hiding place.

London was soon ringing with the news of the death or capture of
the plotters of the Gunpowder Treason, as it quickly began to be
called; and those interested in the matter heard with satisfaction
that Tyrrel and his ban