"Give me the windac! Give it me!"
"I'll not," said Matcham. "I'll save you in your teeth."
"Not?" cried Dick. "I'll make you!"
"Try it," said the other.
They stood, looking in each other's eyes, each ready for a spring. Then Dick leaped; and though Matcham turned instantly and fled, in two bounds he was over-taken, the windac was twisted from his grasp, he was thrown roughly to the ground, and Dick stood across him, flushed and menacing, with doubled fist. Matcham lay where he had fallen, with his face in the grass, not thinking of resistance.
Dick bent his bow.
"I'll teach you!" he cried, fiercely. "Oath or no oath, ye may go hang for me!"
And he turned and began to run. Matcham was on his feet at once, and began running after him.
"What d'ye want?" cried Dick, stopping. "What make ye after me? Stand off!"
"Will follow an I please," said Matcham. "This wood is free to me."
"Stand back, by 'r Lady!" returned Dick, raising his bow.
"Ah, y' are a brave boy!" retorted Matcham. "Shoot!"
Dick lowered his weapon in some confusion.
"See here," he said. "Y' have done me ill enough. Go, then. Go your way in fair wise; or, whether I will or not, I must even drive you to it."
"Well," said Matcham, doggedly, "y' are the stronger. Do your worst. I shall not leave to follow thee, Dick, unless thou makest me," he added.
Dick was almost beside himself. It went against his heart to beat a creature so defenceless; and, for the life of him, he knew no other way to rid himself of this unwelcome and, as he began to think, perhaps untrue companion.
"Y' are mad, I think," he cried. "Fool-fellow, I am hasting to your foes; as fast as foot can carry me, go I thither."
"I care not, Dick," replied the lad. "If y' are bound to die, Dick, I'll die too. I would liever go with you to prison than to go free without you."
"Well," returned the other, "I may stand no longer prating. Follow me, if ye must; but if ye play me false, it shall but little advance you, mark ye that. Shalt have a quarrel in thine inwards, boy."
So saying, Dick took once more to his heels, keeping in the margin of the thicket and looking briskly about him as he went. At a good pace he rattled out of the dell, and came again into the more open quarters of the wood. To the left a little eminence appeared, spotted with golden gorse, and crowned with a black tuft of firs.
"I shall see from there," he thought, and struck for it across a heathy clearing.
He had gone but a few yards, when Matcham touched him on the arm, and pointed. To the eastward of the summit there was a dip, and, as it were, a valley passing to the other side; the heath was not yet out; all the ground was rusty, like an unscoured buckler, and dotted sparingly with yews; and there, one following another, Dick saw half a score green jerkins mounting the ascent, and marching at their head, conspicuous by his boar-spear, Ellis Duckworth in person. One after another gained the top, showed for a moment against the sky, and then dipped upon the further side, until the last was gone.
Dick looked at Matcham with a kindlier eye.
"So y' are to be true to me, Jack?" he asked. "I thought ye were of the other party."
Matcham began to sob.
"What cheer!" cried Dick. "Now the saints behold us! would ye snivel for a word?"
"Ye hurt me," sobbed Matcham. "Ye hurt me when ye threw me down. Y' are a coward to abuse your strength."
"Nay, that is fool's talk," said Dick, roughly. "Y' had no title to my windac, Master John. I would 'a' done right to have well basted you. If ye go with me, ye must obey me; and so, come."
Matcham had half a thought to stay behind; but, seeing that Dick continued to scour full-tilt towards the eminence and not so much as looked across his shoulder, he soon thought better of that, and began to run in turn. But the ground was very difficult and steep; Dick had already a long start, and had, at any rate, the lighter heels, and he had long since come to the summit, crawled forward through the firs, and ensconced himself in a thick tuft of gorse, before Matcham, panting like a deer, rejoined him, and lay down in silence by his side.