"Captain Jack, I am come to you for shelter. There is a price on my head. I am outlawed in effect if not in reality."
"I have heard it. I expected you," answered Captain Jack in the friendly fashion in which he had spoken before to Tom. "I have had news from Lord Claud. It is not the first time he has sent his pupils to me."
"Have I been his pupil?" asked Tom with a half laugh; "in sooth, methinks I have been rather his dupe!"
"A little of both," was the answer. "But we must all pay the penalty of friendship with great men. Yet I think the price is worth the paying. And now, Tom, if that grand horse of yours is as little weary as she looks, let us forth together to some place where none may follow us. And let me tell you that it is not to every one Lord Claud would present his favourite mare, trained like a human creature for her trade."
"You know her?" asked Tom eagerly.
"Nell Gwynne and I have been acquainted this many a day. There be some of her fierce tricks that have been learned from my hand. I have been teaching the same to Wildfire and Wildgoose. We shall not be taken or overcome through lack of good beasts to bear us, Tom."
"You have Wildgoose, too?"
"Yes, I sent after him shortly. He was too grand a beast to be wasted upon a varlet of a serving man. If you have more of the same stock at home, Tom, we might make shift to get at them anon; but for the present we are well enough mounted."
They rode side by side through the forest tracks, Nell Gwynne and Wildfire making acquaintance with apparent mutual satisfaction as they stepped pace for pace together, their riders talking in quiet fashion over their heads.
Tom told the whole story of his adventures since arriving in London in October; and hard indeed was it to believe that months and not years had rolled over his head during that time.