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BARNS ELMS.
"You can ride, Tom ?" Lord Claud had said, as they sauntered homewards from the poet's lodgings.
Tom replied that whatever else he was lacking in, he might certainly lay claim to horsemanship; and the pair walked on together, Lord Claud sunk in thoughtful silence, his companion always ready to give his attention to the sights of the streets, which had lost none of the attraction of novelty as yet.
"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed a voice behind them; "Master Tom the greengoose has found fine company!" "A fine comrade, truly, will he find he has got! What becomes of all the strapping young fellows whom my Lord Claud takes pains to notice and befriend ?" "They are like the butterflies--flutter for a season and are no more seen after!" "Or like the buzzing fly who is lured within the spider's web! 'Tis easy fluttering in, but there is no getting out!" "Ay, ay, the gallows noose must feel mightily like the strand of the spider's web to the silly fly.

And as the spider pounces upon his victim ere it be dead, and sucks away its life blood, so does the hangman cut down his victim alive and cut out his living heart! Oh, 'tis a fine sight! a fine sight! Young Tom must e'en go and see the next execution at Tyburn!" These words were spoken with caution, and yet every one of them fell full upon Tom's ears.

These ears, be it noted, were very keen ones, as is often the case with those who have tracked game and hunted the fallow deer in the free forest.

Moreover, Tom had not yet grown callous to the sounds of talk and laughter in the streets.