“Tell thy father that I sup tonight with Abraham Dyson,” said Cuthbert, as he kissed her for the last time before he left.  “It may be I shall not be home in time for the supper, and I would not be too close questioned on my return.  I will go thither when I have landed once more.  Good Jacob will wish for news of Father Urban.”

Cuthbert was gone, Cherry looking wistfully after him.  She had already begun to know something of the pain as well as of the joy of love.  She felt that there was in Cuthbert’s nature a strain of self devotion and heroism which frightened her whilst it enthralled her fancy.  She had an instinct that he would never turn back in any quest he had undertaken for the peril he might have to face.  She felt that in him she was realizing her vague ideals of knightly prowess and dauntless courage; but all the same, unless she might be at his side to share the peril, she would almost have felt happier had this fearless bravery been somewhat less.

Cuthbert meantime pursued his way with a light heart, his packet of papers securely buttoned in the breast of his doublet.  The keen air of the February afternoon fanned his face.  His heart was full of tender thoughts of Cherry and her sweet affection for him.  How soon would it be possible, he wondered, to claim her as his own; and what would Martin Holt say to the frustration of one of his favourite schemes?

Of his present mission, and of any peril likely to accrue to him therefrom, Cuthbert thought little or nothing.  He did not see how he could possibly come under suspicion simply from fulfilling the priest’s request.  It would have been brutal to refuse; and what harm could he do to himself or others by simply delivering a packet of papers?

He had almost promised Master Robert Catesby before this to visit him in his river-side house.  Doubtless this was the very place for which he was now bound.  Anything like an adventure was agreeable to one of Cuthbert’s imaginative nature, and a spice of possible danger did not detract from the sense of fascination, even though he might not see wherein the danger lay.

The wherry he was wont to use lay moored near to the Three Cranes, and no one heeded or questioned him as he stepped in and pushed off into the river.  A couple of soldiers were lounging upon the little wharf and watching the small craft as they came and went.  They appeared to take some note of Cuthbert, as of others who passed by, but they did not speak to him, and he wondered what their business was there.

A fragment of talk between two watermen reached him as he began rowing out in the direction of the Cherry Blossom; for he did not wish to take the upstream direction till twilight should have fallen and his movements would escape unheeded, and the voices of these men as they passed him reached him clearly over the water.

“On the lookout for the runaway priest, I take it.  Thou surely didst hear how he gave them the slip in the fog, just when they thought they had him safe.  He had been well bruised and battered.  It was a marvel how he got free.  But he knew the narrow lanes well, and doubled like a hare.  Doubtless he had his friends in waiting, for he slipped into some craft and eluded pursuit.  But for the fog they would have made sure of him that time.  They say he—­”