"Oh, yes," said Mistress Anne, with a sigh, and a meaning look at Gil. "He makes you a pleasant companion, Mistress Anne," said Gil, quietly. "Oh, yes," she cried; "he is delightful--so much Court news--such polish; it is indeed a pleasure to meet a true gentleman down here." "Which I am not, then," thought Gil. "Will nothing move him to jealousy?" said Anne Beckley to herself; and with her eyes flashing angrily, she laid her hand on her father's arm, and after a polite salutation they passed on. "Poor girl!" said Gil to himself. "I am not a vain man, but if she be not ogling, and cap-setting, and trying to draw me on at her apron-string, I am an ass. Why," he continued, turning to gaze after the little party just as Mistress Anne turned her own head quickly to look after him, and, seeing that he was doing the same, snatched herself away as if in dudgeon--"one would think that she was trying to draw me on by her looks, and seeking to make me jealous of this gay lad from town. Poor lass! it is labour in vain; and she would not cause me a pang if she married him to-morrow. What's that?" "That" was a slight rustling noise amongst the trees, followed by a "clink-clink-clink" of flint against steel; and striding out of the path and going in the direction of the sound Gil came upon Wat Kilby, seated in a mossy nook, blowing at a spark in some tinder and holding his little pipe ready in his hand. "Hollo, Wat!" cried Gil. The gaunt old fellow went on blowing without paying the slightest heed to the summons, then applied a rough match dipped in brimstone, whose end, on application to the glowing spark in the tinder, first melted, and then began to burn with a fluttering blue flame. This was soon communicated to the splint of wood, and the flame was then carefully held in a scarlet cap taken from Wat's grizzly half-bald head for shelter from the soft summer breeze, while he held the bowl of his little pipe to it and solemnly puffed it alight, after which he rose from his knees, took up a sitting position with his back against an old beech, gazed up in the speaker's face and replied-- "Hollo, skipper!" "I wanted to see you Wat," said Gil. "Look here, old lad, how came you to be hanging about the house last night when you gave the signal?" "Hah!" ejaculated Wat, exhaling a thin puff of fine blue smoke and gazing straight before him through the sun-pleached foliage of the forest. "Do you hear me?" cried Gil, impatiently, as he stamped his heavy foot upon the moss. "Hah!" ejaculated Wat again. "I was there on the watch." "Yes, yes; and what did you see?" "Mas' Cobbe come out soon after you had gone across the little bridge and pook it out of the way." "Yes, yes; go on." "Then I give you the signal two or three times before I could make you hear, and just then I heard another step and hid away, and 'fore I had time to do more--in he went. You know." "Yes; but look here, Wat, how came you to be there?"