Ned followed Humphrey with halting steps, shaking first one leg and then another, as if to assure himself that they still belonged to him. 'I'll do all you ask, Master,' Ned said, 'but ride a-horseback. I will walk fifty miles sooner. My legs are full of pins and needles, and it will take a deal of shaking and rubbing before I can call 'em my own again.' Humphrey could not resist laughing, for Ned's face was comical in its contortions, as he stamped his feet and rubbed his shins with muttered exclamations that, as long as his name was Ned, he would never get upon a horse's back again. 'You've got a fit of the cramp,' Humphrey said, 'it will soon pass. Now, after you have had a good meal, take this letter which is tied and sealed, and put it into the hands of Mistress Gifford. It will tell her all I can yet tell her in answer to the letter you brought me. At least she will know by it that I will do my utmost to serve her, and find her son.' Ned took the letter with his large brown fingers, and, putting it into the pouch in the breast of his smock, he said,-- 'I'll carry it safe, Master, and I'll be off at once.' 'Not till you have broken your long fast in the kitchen of the hostel.' 'An it please you, Master, I would sooner be off, if I get a cake to eat on the way, and a draft of ale before I start; that will serve me. Do not order me, I pray you, to sit down with those gibing villains--no, nor order me, kind sir, to mount a horse again. If I live to be three score, I pray Heaven I may never sit a-horseback again.' CHAPTER IX ACROSS THE FORD 'Farewell to you! my hopes, my wonted waking dreams, Farewell, sometimes enjoyed joy, eclipsed are thy beams. Farewell self-pleasing thoughts! which quietness brings forth, And farewell friendship's sacred league! uniting minds of worth.' SIR F. GREVILLE, 1591. Lucy Forrester was mending the lace of one of Lady Pembroke's ruffs which had been torn at the edge on the previous day, when a page brought in Humphrey's letter, saying, 'For Mistress Forrester.' 'Hand it hither,' Mistress Crawley said. 'It will keep till that lace is mended, and I'd have you to know, Mistress Lucy, my lady is very careful that there should be no billets passing between the young gentlewomen of her household and idle gallants about the Court. A pack of rubbish is in that letter, I'll warrant; some rhymes about your bright eyes and cherry cheeks, or some such stuff.' 'If you please, Madam, I desire to have my letter, and, if you will not give it to me, I will go to my lady and tell her you refuse to let me have it.' 'You little sauce-box! Do you think my lady has nought to do but attend to the whimsies of chits like you? Go on with your work. Do you hear?' Lucy was burning with indignation, and, moreover, her curiosity was awakened to know who had written to her, and what were the contents of the letter.