"So they did; but—bless your soul!—it's like looking for a needle in a hay-stack—couldn't find him anywhere."
"Oh! it was capital fun!" said Gipsy, laughing, "it reminded me of 'hide-and-go-seek' more than anything else. Once or twice they caught sight of me through the bushes, and taking me for poor Tom, came pretty near firing on me. Simms made them stop, and called to me to surrender to the law, or I'd repent it. Accordingly, I surrendered, and rode out, and—my goodness!—if they didn't look blue when they saw me! I burst right out laughing in their face, and made Simms so mad that I guess he wished he had let his men shoot me. Oh! didn't I have a jolly time, though! I took them, by various artifices, miles out of their way—generally leaving them half-swamped in a bog, or in some pathless part of the woods—until Simms lost all patience, and swore till he was black in the face, and rode home in a towering passion, all covered with mud, and his fine city clothes torn to tatters. Ha, ha, ha! I guess I enjoyed it, if they didn't."
"As mischievous as ever!" exclaimed the squire. "Pretty way, that, to treat the officers of the law in the discharge of their duty! How will you like it, if that black demon comes here some night, and murders us all in our beds?"
Lizzie uttered a stifled shriek at the idea.
"I'm sure I'll be glad of it, if he only murders Spider first, and so save me the trouble," said Gipsy.
"You're an affectionate wife, 'pon my word," muttered Louis.
"Yes; but it's just like the diabolical young imp," growled the squire.
"Thank you—you're complimentary," muttered Gipsy.
"Mind you," continued the squire, "while Big Tom's at liberty you must leave off your rides through the woods and over the hills—because he might be the death of you at any moment."
"More likely I'd be the death of him. I never was born to be killed by a ruffian."