"Nay, but boast not of the future, my son," pleaded the mother,
with a note of anxiety in her voice; "and be not over confident.
The times are perilous, and you are but an untried youth. Boasting
is not well."

But Tom could not listen. He laughingly repeated his boast, and was
off to the stables forthwith, to pick for himself the best horses
for his ride to London. For, of course, he must first go there, to
fit himself out for his journey beyond seas, and find out where the
army of the Duke was at present to be found.

Vague rumours of the great victory had penetrated to the wilds of
Essex; but where Blenheim was, and what the victory was all about,
the rustics knew as little as "Old Kaspar" of the immortal ballad
of later days. The squires were little less vague in their ideas as
to the scope and purpose of the war. It was to abase the power of
France--so much they knew, and was unpopular with the Tories of
Jacobite leanings, for the reason that the French king was
sheltering the dethroned monarch of the Stuart line. But then the
great Duke who was winning all these victories was said to be a
stanch Tory himself; so that it was all rather confusing, and Tom
was just as ignorant and ill-informed on all these topics as the
hinds who tilled his fields. He had never cared to inform himself
of what was passing in the world, and the newspapers had always
seemed to him very dull reading.

Now, however, he wished he knew a little more; but he told himself
that he should quickly pick up everything in London. His heart beat
at the thought of seeing that wonderful city; and although he
carelessly promised his mother not to linger there long, he was by