"That's likely," answered the _ci-devant_ poacher; "though I have no occasion to say so, either; for people have done much more for me than they ever promised, and more than I ever expected. See what good Sir John Slingsby has done, after I have been taking his game for this many a year; and Mr. Beauchamp, too--why, it was a twenty-pound note he gave me, just because he heard that my cottage had been burnt down, and all the things in it destroyed--but it was all owing to Captain Hayward, who began it by saving the dear boy's life, that lies sleeping there in t'other room, and spoke well of me--which nobody ever took the trouble to do before--and said I was not so bad as I seemed; and, please God, I'll not give his promises the lie, anyhow." "God bless him for a good man," said Widow Lamb: "he is one of the few, Stephen, whose heart and soul are in doing good." "Ay, that he is," answered the gamekeeper; "but I did not know you knew him, goody." "No, I do not know much of him," answered the old lady, "but I know he has been very kind to my boy Bill; and before he went off for London t'other day, had a long talk to him, which is better, to my thinking than the money he gave him--but who is is this Mr. Beauchamp, you say is such a kind man, too? I've heard Bill talk of him, and he tells me the same; but I can't well make out about him." "Why, he is a friend of Captain Hayward's," rejoined the gamekeeper; "he has been staying a long while at the White Hart, and just the same sort of man as the other, though a sadder-looking man, and not so frank and free." "But what looking man is he?" asked the old woman. "You can tell one what a dog's like, or what a ferret's like, Stephen, well enough; and I should like to hear about him; for I have a curiosity, somehow." "Why, he is a tall man and a strong man," answered Stephen Gimlet, "with a good deal of darkish hair, not what one would say curling, but yet not straight, either; and large eyes, in which you can see little or no white; very bright and sparkling, too. Then he's somewhat pale and sunburnt; and very plain in his dress, always in dark clothes; but yet, when one looks at him, one would not like to say a saucy thing to him; for there is something, I don't know what, in his way and his look, that, though he is as kind as possible when he speaks, seems to tell every body, 'I am not an ordinary sort of person.' He never wears any gloves, that I saw; but, for all that, his hands are as clean as if they had been washed the minute before, and the wristbands of his shirt are as white as snow." Goody Lamb paused, thoughtfully, and rubbed her forehead once or twice, under the gray hair: "I have seen him, then," she said at length, in a very peculiar tone; "he has passed my little window more than once--and his name is Beauchamp is it?" "So they say," answered Stephen Gimlet, in some surprise; "why should it not?" "Oh! I don't know," answered the widow; and there she ceased.