it's April, and the birds all sing, and the blossoms fall about my

bed--or whether it's winter, and I sit alone with my good gossip the

fire, and robin red breast twitters in the woods--here, is my church and

market, and my wife and child. It's here I come back to, and it's here,

so please the saints, that I would like to die."

"'Tis a warm corner, to be sure," replied Dick, "and a pleasant, and a

well hid."

"It had need to be," returned Lawless, "for an they found it, Master

Shelton, it would break my heart. But here," he added, burrowing with

his stout fingers in the sandy floor, "here is my wine cellar; and ye

shall have a flask of excellent strong stingo."

Sure enough, after but a little digging, he produced a big leathern

bottle of about a gallon, nearly three-parts full of a very heady and

sweet wine; and when they had drunk to each other comradely, and the fire

had been replenished and blazed up again, the pair lay at full length,

thawing and steaming, and divinely warm.

"Master Shelton," observed the outlaw, "y' 'ave had two mischances this

last while, and y' are like to lose the maid--do I take it aright?"

"Aright!" returned Dick, nodding his head.

Well, now," continued Lawless, "hear an old fool that hath been

nigh-hand everything, and seen nigh-hand all! Ye go too much on other

The Black Arrow