"Morning, Miggs," retorted John, not looking up from his work, "how’s the old woman?" "I dunno, Mr Stich," replied Miggs, with a dubious shake of the head. "Badly, I expec’ ... same as yesterday," he added in a more cheerful spirit. "Why! what’s the matter?" "I dunno, Mr Stich, that there’s anything the matter," explained Jock Miggs with slow and sad deliberation, "but she’s dead ... same as yesterday." Involuntarily Philip laughed at the quaint, fatalistic statement. "Hello!" said Miggs, looking at him with the same apathetic wonder, "who be yon lad?" "That’s my nephew Jim, out o’ Nottingham," said John, "come to give me a hand." "Morning, lad," piped Miggs, in his high treble, as he extended a wrinkled, bony hand to Stretton. "Lud, John Stich," he exclaimed, "any one’d know he was one o’ your family from the muscle he’s got." And gently, meditatively, he rubbed one shrivelled hand against the other, looking with awe at the fine figure of a man before him. "A banging lad your nephew too," he added with a chuckle; "he’ll be turning the heads of all the girls this side o’ Brassington, maybe." "Oh! I’ll warrant he’s got a sweetheart at home, eh, Jim lad?—or maybe more than one. But what brings ye here this day, friend Miggs?" The wizened little face assumed a puzzled expression. "I dunno..." he said vaguely, "maybe I wanted to tell ye about the soldiers I seed at the Royal George over Brassington way." "What about ’em, Miggs?" "_I_ dunno.... I see a corporal and lots of fellers in red .... some say there’s more o’ them ... I dunno." "Ha!" said Stich, carelessly, "What are they after?" "_I_ dunno," commented Miggs, imperturbably. "Some say they’re after that chap Beau Brocade. There was a coach stopped on the Heath ’gain last night. Fifty guineas he took out of it, he did...." And Jock Miggs chuckled feebly with apparent but irresponsible delight. "Some folk say it were Sir Humphrey Challoner’s coach over from Hartington, and no one’s going to break their hearts over that! he! he! he! ... but _I_ dunno," he added with sudden frightened vagueness. "Be they cavalry soldiers over at the Royal George, Miggs?" asked John. "_I_ dunno ... I seed no horses ... looks more like foot soldiers ... but _I_ dunno. The Corporal he read out something just now about our getting twenty guineas if we shoot one o’ them rebels. I’d be mighty glad to get twenty guineas, Master Stich," he said reflectively, "but I dunno as how I could handle a musket rightly ... and folks say them traitors are mighty desperate fellows ... but I dunno..." Then with sudden resolution Jock Miggs turned to the doorway. "Morning, Master Stich," he said decisively. "Morning, lad! ... morning." "Morning, Miggs." However, it seemed that Jock Miggs’s visit to the forge was not so purposeless as it at first appeared.