"Exactly, Miggs," interposed Master Mittachip, spurred to activity by a vigorous kick from Sir Humphrey, "and I have come out here on purpose to see you, for it is very important that you should go at once on to Wirksworth for me, with a packet and a note for Master Duffy, my clerk." "What, now? This time o’ night?" quoth Jock, vaguely. "Aye, aye, Miggs ... you are not afraid, are you?" Sir Humphrey had taken up his stand outside the hut, leaving Mittachip to arrange this matter with the shepherd. He had leaned his powerful frame against the wall of the shed, and was grasping his heavily-weighted riding-crop, ready and alert in case of attack. The darkness round him at this moment was intense, and his sharp eyes vainly tried to pierce the gloom, which seemed to be closing in upon him, but his ears were keenly alive to every sound which came to him out of the blackness of the night. And all the while he tried not to lose one word of the conversation between Mittachip and the shepherd. "That’s true, Jock," the attorney was saying. "Well! then if you’ll go to Wirksworth for me, now, at once, there’ll be a guinea for you." "A guinea!" came in bewildered accents from the worthy shepherd, "Lordy! Lordy! but these be ’mazing times!" "All I want you to do, Jock, is to take a packet for me to my house in Fulsome Street. You understand?" But here there was a pause. Miggs was evidently hesitating. "Well?" queried Mittachip. "Oi’m thinking, sir..." "What?" "How can Oi go on your errand when Oi’ve got to guard this ’ere sheep for you?" "Oh, damn the sheep!" quoth Master Mittachip, emphatically. "Well, sir! if you be satisfied..." "You know my house at Wirksworth?" "Aye, aye, sir." "I’ll give you a packet. You are to take it to Wirksworth now at once, and to give it to my clerk, Master Duffy, at my house in Fulsome Street. You are quite sure you understand?" "I dunno as I do!" quoth Jock, vaguely. But with an impatient oath Sir Humphrey turned into the hut: matters were progressing much too slowly for his impatient temperament. He pushed Mittachip aside, and said peremptorily,— "Look here, shepherd, you want to earn a guinea, don’t you?" "Aye, sir, that I do." "Well, here’s the packet, and here’s a letter for Master Duffy at Master Mittachip’s house in Fulsome Street. When Master Duffy has the packet and reads the letter he will give you a guinea. Is that clear?" And he handed the packet of letters, and also a small note, to Jock Miggs, who seemed to have done with hesitation, for he took them with alacrity. "Oh! aye! that’s clear enough," he said, "’tis writ in this paper that I’m to get the guinea?" "In Master Mittachip’s own hand. But mind! no gossiping, and no loitering. You must get to Wirksworth before cock-crow." Jock Miggs slipped the packet and the note into the pocket of his smock. The matter of the guinea having been satisfactorily explained to him, he was quite ready to start.