“What have I to run away from now?” he answered, in a deep sweet voice.  “I run from enemies, but not from friends.”

“That is very wise.  But your enemies are still almost within call of you.  They will come back worse than ever when they find you are not there.”

“I am not afraid, fair lady, for I understand their ways.  I have led them a good many dances....  When they cannot take another step, they will come back to Anerley for breakfast.”

“I dare say they will; and we shall be glad to see them.  My father is a soldier, and his duty is to nourish and comfort the forces of the King.”

“Then you are young Mistress Anerley?  I was sure of it before.  There are no two such.  And you have saved my life.  It is something to owe it so fairly.”

The young sailor wanted to kiss Mary’s hand; but not being used to any gallantry, she held out her hand in the simplest manner to take back her riding skirt; and he, though longing in his heart to keep it, for a token or pretext for another meeting, found no excuse for doing so.  And yet he was not without some resource.

For the maiden was giving him a farewell smile, being quite content with the good she had done, and the luck of recovering her property; and that sense of right which in those days formed a part of every good young woman said to her plainly that she must be off.  And she felt how unkind it was to keep him any longer in a place where the muzzle of a gun, with a man behind it, might appear at any moment.  But he, having plentiful breath again, was at home with himself to spend it.

“Fair young lady,” he began, for he saw that Mary liked to be called a lady, because it was a novelty, “owing more than I ever can pay you already, may I ask a little more?  Then it is that on your way down to the sea, you would just pick up (if you should chance to see it) the fellow ring to this, and perhaps you will look at this to know it by.  The one that was shot away flew against a stone just on the left of the mouth of the Dike, but I durst not stop to look for it, and I must not go back that way now.  It is more to me than a hatful of gold, though nobody else would give a crown for it.”

“And they really shot away one of your earrings?  Careless, cruel, wasteful men!  What could they have been thinking of?”

“They were thinking of getting what is called ‘blood-money.’  One hundred pounds for Robin Lyth.  Dead or alive—­one hundred pounds."...

“Then are you the celebrated Robin Lyth—­the new Robin Hood, as they call him?  The man who can do almost anything?”

“Mistress Anerley, I am Robin Lyth; but, as you have seen, I cannot do much....  They have missed the best chance they ever had at me; it will make their temper very bad.  If they shot at me again, they could do no good.  Crooked mood makes crooked mode.”

“You forget that I should not see such things.  You may like very much to be shot at; but—­but you should think of other people.”