“I like well enough a visit to the Priory.  There is always good cheer there enough and to spare.  They know what good living means, those holy men.  If all other trades failed, I would not mind turning friar myself.”

“Nay, brother, jest not upon the holy men,” quoth his sister in a tone of gentle reproof.  Then turning to Paul, she added, with something of pleading in her tones, “But, sir, why peril yourself by venturing into the forest alone?  You have still but the use of one arm, and were the robbers to be on the watch for you, you would fall an easy prey into their hands.”

But Paul laughed, as also did Jack.

“I trow the robbers have something else to do than to play the spy continually on me and my movements,” he said.  “They cannot always be on the watch, and the wood is dark and full of hiding places.  Were I to hear the sound of pursuit, I warrant me I could hide myself so that none should find me.  I have done the like many a time before now.  In this part of the country one must needs go into the forest if one is ever to leave the shelter of the house at all.  Have no fear for me; I will take care not to run into danger.”

Joan looked as if hardly satisfied, though she was unable to uphold her case by argument; for it was very true that if their guest was to be anything but a close prisoner, he must adventure himself from time to time in the forest.  Jack, however, broke into one of his hearty laughs, as he looked at Paul, and said: 

“Those same robbers are not such bad fellows, after all, as some of our good folks would make out.  True, they help themselves to our goods from time to time; but they are capital company if you chance to fall upon their haunts, and they make you welcome.  I’ve spent more than one night amongst them, and never a bit the worse.  Men must live; and if the folks in authority will outlaw them, why, they must jog along then as best they may.  I don’t think they do more harm than they can well help.”

Mistress Devenish shook her head in silence over the rather wild talk of her son, but she said nothing.  She was used to Jack’s ways, and she was proud of his spirit, though afraid sometimes that it would lead him into trouble.  She had noted of late that he had been unwontedly absent from home during the long evenings of the summer just gone by, and had wondered what took him off, for he seldom gave account of himself.  She noted, too, that he spoke in a very different fashion from others of the robber band that was such a terror to the village folks.  She did not know whether or not to put these two facts together as connected with each other; but she listened eagerly to all he said on the subject, trying to discover what might be the meaning of this strange leniency of opinion.  “It is different for you, brother—­they owe you no grudge,” said Joan, with a slight shiver; whilst the farmer broke in roughly: 

“Tut, tut, Jack! what mean you by trying to make common cause with the ruffians who would have carried your sister off as a prey of that graceless scamp well-called Devil’s Own?  I marvel to hear such words from you.  You should know better.”