“They are not all brutes like Devil’s Own,” muttered Jack in a low tone; but he did not speak aloud, for the fashion of the day forbade the young to argue with the old, or children to answer back when their parents spoke to them in reproof.

But Paul was still resolved that he would be the messenger to carry to the Priory that day the two fat capons the worthy mistress had in readiness for the prior’s table.  They had been bespoken some time, and could be no longer delayed.  Paul was weary of an idle life, and eager to see something of the country in which he found himself.  He was in comfortable quarters enough at the farm; but he was growing stronger each day, and was beginning to fret against the fetters which held him from straying far from the farm.

He did not much believe in the lasting anger of the robber band.  He knew that those gentlemen would have other matters on hand than that of revenging themselves upon him for his frustration of their captain’s design.  He was content to rest yet awhile beneath the hospitable roof of the Figeons, so long as he knew that his presence there might be something of a protection and gain to its inmates; but he had no intention of being a prisoner.  His young blood stirred within him, and he longed to be out in the free air of heaven again.  His strength had all come back, and even the broken arm was mending so fast that he felt it would not be long before he should gain its full use again.  The love of adventure, strong within him, made him fearless even of a second encounter with the robbers.  He felt certain he could hold his own against one or two, and a whole band would never take him unawares.  He should hear or see them in plenty of time to hide away in some tree or thicket.  It was absurd to be chained within doors any longer.

Paul was looking now a very different object from the battered and way-worn traveller who had rescued Joan from the robbers.  A couple of weeks’ rest and good feeding had given a healthy glow to his cheek, had brightened his eye, and brought back the native boyishness and brightness to his face.  He was stronger, gayer, blither than he had been since the never-to-be-forgotten day when he had closed his dead mother’s eyes, and been obliged to fly for his life from his ancestral halls, ere the rapacious scions of the House of York fell upon him there, to take into their own possession all that should have been his.  For his father and brothers lay in a bloody grave, killed in one of those many risings and insurrections scarce mentioned in history, whereby the adherents of the Red Rose sought to disturb Edward’s rule in England, and incite the people to bring back him they called their rightful king.

Those days had changed Paul, a mere lad of seventeen, into a grave and sad-faced man; but the impression had gradually worn somewhat faint during the three years in which he had been a wanderer and an outcast from his home.  Of late it had seemed to him that his lost youth was returning, and certainly there was that in his bright glance and erect and noble bearing which won for him universal admiration and affection.