me, they can be put off the
track."

"Trusty! Your face answers for you. Eh, fair Mistress Jane?"

"Sir, it must be as you will."

"This way then, sir," said Steadfast, who was off his own horse by this
time, and leading it into a rough track through a thicket whence some
timber had been drawn out in the summer.

"They will see where we turned off," whispered the lady.

"No, ma'am, not unless you get off the hard ground. Besides they will go
on the way to Breakneck Hill. Hark! I hear a hallooing. Not near--no--no
fear, madam."

They were by this time actually hidden from the common by the copsewood,
and the distant shouts of the hue-and-cry kept all silent till they were
fairly out beyond it, not far from Stead's own fields.

Happily they had hitherto met no one, but there was danger now of
encountering gleaners, and indeed Stead's white horse could be seen from
a distance, and might attract attention to his companions.

"Hallo!" exclaimed the groom, as they halted under shelter of a pollard
willow. "I've heard tell that a white horse is the surest mark for a
bullet in a battle, and if that be Breakneck Hill, as you call it, your
beast may bring the sapient smith down on us. Had we not best part?"

"Aye," said Steadfast. "I was thinking what was best. Whither were you
going?"

He blurted it out, not knowing to whom to address himself, or how to
frame his speech. The lady hesitated, but her companion named Castle
Carey.

"Then, please your honour," said Stead, impartially addressing both,
"methinks the best course would be, if this--"

"Groom William," suggested that personage.

"Would go down into yonder covert with my little brother here, where my
poor place is, and where my sister can show a safe hiding-place, in case
Master Hopkins suspects me, and follows; but I scarce think he will.
Then meanwhile, if the lady will trust herself to me--"

"O! there is no danger for me," she said.

"Go on, my Somerset Solomon," said the groom.

"Then would I take the lady on for a short space to a good woman in
Elmwood there. And on the way this horse shall lose his Worcester shoe,
and I will get Smith Blane, who is an honest fellow, to put on another;
and when the chase is like to be over, I will come back for him and put
you on the cross lane for Castle Carey, which don't join with the road
you came by, till just ere you get into the town."

"There's wit as well as cheese in Somerset. What say you, my guardia