Ned Hayward opened the door somewhat suddenly, and as he went out, he almost tumbled over the little humpbacked pot-boy. Now whether the young gentleman--his years might be nineteen or twenty, though his stature was that of a child of eight--came thither to replenish the tankard he had previously brought, or whether he affected the moonlight, or was fond of conversation in which he did not take a part, Ned Hayward could not at the moment divine; but before he and Beauchamp had taken a dozen steps up the yard, Hayward felt a gentle pull at his coat-tail. "What is it, my lad?" he said, looking down upon the pot-boy, and at the same time stooping his head as if with a full impression that his ears at their actual height could hear nothing that proceeded from a point so much below as the deformed youth's mouth. Instantly a small high-pitched but very musical voice replied, "I'll come for your boots early to-morrow, Sir, and tell you all about it." "Can't you tell me now?" asked the young gentleman, "I am going into the stable to see my horse, and you can say your say there, my man." "I daren't," answered the pot-boy, "there's Tim the Ostler, and Jack Millman's groom, and Long Billy, the Taunton post-boy, all about. I'll come to-morrow and fetch your boots." At the same moment the landlord's voice exclaiming in sharp tones, "Dicky! Dicky Lamb!--what the devil are you so long about?" was heard, and the pot-boy ran off as fast as his long thin legs would carry him. "Well this affair promises some amusement," said Ned Hayward, when they had again reached the little parlour, which in his good-humoured easy way he now looked upon as common to them both. "Upon my word I am obliged to these highwaymen, or whatever the scoundrels may be, for giving me something fresh to think of. Although at good Sir John Slingsby's I shall have fishing enough, I dare say, yet one cannot fish all day and every day, and sometimes one gets desperately bored in an old country-house, unless fate strikes out something not quite in the common way to occupy one." "Did you ever try falling in love?" asked Beauchamp, with a quiet smile, as he glanced his eyes over the fine form and handsome features of his companion, "it is an excellent pastime, I am told."