HULLOH!’ said Mr. Jarvis; ‘did you hear that gun? There’s another of them there conwicks escaped.’ ‘Poor fellow!’ ejaculated Mr. Jarvis’s better half; ‘and I hope as he’ll get away.’ Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were the proprietors of a travelling theatrical show, and this conversation occurred late one winter afternoon, as the caravan jolted along over the rough roads of Dartmoor. Mr. Jarvis’s ‘temple of the drama,’ packed up very small, and the whole affair was very comfortably accommodated in two living-vans and a baggage-waggon. Mrs. Jarvis was sitting inside the first van with the door open, and Mr. Jarvis was walking behind, to keep himself warm and to enjoy his afternoon pipe. The company had been dissolved at the last town, for the season was over, and the Jarvises were making their way as fast as they could to London, to complete their arrangements for a metropolitan circuit, with a new drama and a specially organized company. Their last tour had not been a great success. The attendance at the country fairs had fallen off, and in small places where they had built the theatre up and stayed for a week, they had hardly cleared expenses. The new fashion of the London companies touring, combined with the number of first-class theatres rapidly rising in the provincial towns, was slowly but surely dealing a death-blow to the ‘booth’ business. To add to the misfortunes of the worthy couple, their only son, Shakspeare, the most valuable member of the company, had been down with a wasting fever, and was so ill when they left town that he was unable to be brought with them. ‘Ah!’ Mrs. Jarvis would exclaim, with a sigh, when she counted the takings after each performance, ‘there ain’t no luck about the show without Shakspeare—Shakspeare allus was the draw, father, and we shan’t do no good without him.’ ‘Poor chap!’ answered Mr. Jarvis. ‘I’ope as he’s a-goin’ on all right. It don’t seem like the old show without him—do it, mother?’ ‘No, it don’t. And what we should ha’ done if we hadn’t ha’ had sich a lodger as Mrs. Smith to leave to look arter him I don’t know! He writes as she’s been like a mother to him, and nussed him till he can almost stand on his ‘ed as easy as ever, and he’s turned his fust caterine wheel last Saturday, and ‘as been better ever since.’ ‘He’s a beautiful scholard, ain’t he?’ said Mr. Jarvis, as he took Shakspeare’s letter from his wife, and looked at it reverently. ‘With the eddication he’s got he’ll do something for the dramar some day, as’ll astonish the purfession. Hulloh, there’s the gun again! Why, they’re coming this way!’ As Mr. Jarvis spoke a body of men came running along, peering into the hedges, and looking on every side of them. The fog was deepening as the darkness came on, and the snow lay thick on road and hedge and tree, so that it was no easy matter to distinguish anything at a distance. As the men came up with the caravan they stopped, and the leader, an armed warder, addressed Mr. Jarvis.