He did not remain long in suspense. Ere half an hour elapsed, a shambling, ill-looking youth, wearing "poacher" written in every line of his face as plain as print, slouched up and touched his hat, waiting however to be questioned, with an awkward grin that denoted how his natural insolence was kept in check by the Parson's quick temper and reputation for physical prowess. "He be soon up, be wor Pa'yson," was the verdict of his parishioners, "and main ready with his hands, right or w'hrong." "What, Ike!" said Mr. Gale, assuming a cordiality he did not feel, for to do him justice he hated a poacher, especially in the vicinity of deer; "not hanged yet, nor even sent to Botany Bay? What hast been doing then these so many weeks? Has it been slack time with thee while I've been away?" "Much as usual, Pay'son," answered Ike, in the broadest dialect of West Somerset, which it is needless to reproduce here. "It's you gentlefolk that knows what change means. Frolics, too. There's not much of that for poor chaps like us!" "What, is there no news in the place, then?" asked the Parson. "Never a fresh nag in Farmer Veal's stable? Never a strange face stopped to take a drink of cider at the Wheat Sheaf or the Crown?" Small as it was, Porlock boasted two beershops, and Ike was familiar with both. "There be one strange face," answered the latter, with a cunning leer; "but it's little cider that gets inside of _he_--beer neither. The best of wine in his glass, and the best of nags in his stable, gold lace on his coat, fine linen on his back, a sword in his belt, and a warm welcome from the likeliest lass in the West Country--that's what _he_ has. Folks like me must put up with a drink of cider, when they can get it. I'm main thirsty now, Pa'yson." "What do you mean?" asked Gale, in no little disquietude, but putting silver, nevertheless, in the other's dirty hand. "They say he do be a kinsman of Mistress Nelly, for sure," answered Ike. "And it's like enough. They can't let him be, neither her nor the old man, by day or night. I do know well he do be in and out of the house at all hours, like a dog in a fair." Roused beyond endurance, the Parson clenched his heavy riding-whip; and, but that he bit his lip till the blood came, in an effort to control himself, would have given his informant the full benefit of its weight. Ike never knew how near he was having his head broke then and there. "Do you mean that old Master Carew has a kinsman paying him a visit?" he asked; and while he spoke Abner Gale wondered at the resolution with which he kept down his wrath. "When did he come, lad? can ye tell, now? And how soon is he going away?" But Ike, whose fingers were itching to spend in drink the money he had earned so easily, did not care to sustain farther cross-examination.