sin Tom had more wits than I had
thought; for he said no more to me on the point, nor I to him; and I
think I should have spoken to her that summer, had not an interruption
come to my plans that set all aside for the present. During those months
of spring and early summer we had no religious consolation at all; for
we were too near London, and at the same time too solitary for any
priest to come to us.

The interruption came in this manner.

I had sent my man over to Waltham Cross on an affair of a horse that was
to be sold there on the nineteenth day of June (as I very well remember,
from what happened afterwards); and when he came back he asked if he
might speak with me privately. When I had him alone in my room he told
me he had news from a Catholic ostler at the _Four Swans_, with whom he
had spoken, that a party had been asking after me there that very
morning.

"I said to him, sir, What kind of a party was it? And he told me that
there were four men; and that they went in to drink first and to dine,
for they came there about noon. I asked him then if any of them had any
mark by which he could be known; and he laughed at that; and said that
one of them was branded in the hand, for he was pulling his glove on
when he came into the yard afterwards, so that it was seen."

I said nothing for a moment, when James said that, for I was considering
whether so small a business of so many months ago was worth thinking of.

"And what then?" I said.

"Well, sir; as I was riding back I kept my eyes about me; and especially
in the villages where it might be easy to miss them; and in Puckeridge,
as I came by the inn I looked into the yard, and saw there four horses
all tied up together."

"Did you ask after them?" I said.

"No, sir; I thought it best not. But I pushed on as quickly as I could."

"Did the ostler at Waltham Cross tell you what answer was given to the
inquiries?"

"No, sir--he heard your name only from the parlour window as he went
through the yard."

Now here was I in a quandary. On the one hand this was a very small
affair, and not much evidence either way, and I did not wish to alarm my
Cousin Tom if I need not; and, on the other if they were after me I had
best be gone as soon as I could. It was six months since the fellow
Dangerfield had asked after me at Whitehall, and no harm had followed.
Yet here was the tale of the branded hand--and, although there were many
branded hands in England, the cons