"Were you not bidden never to go there again?" Dick continued. "Didn’t I say I’d break your head for you if you disobeyed?" "Iss, you did so," said Sam ruefully. "Ah, well, you’m better do it and get it over." "What were you doing there?" said Dick, still holding the gate. Sam looked sidelong, shuffled his feet, then, as with a great effort, replied: "I didn’ go to sell eggs, nor nawthin’ o’ that sort. If you must haul it out of a poor feller, I rambled there to——" "Well?" "To see maidy Susan; now I’ve said it." "Then you’re a silly ass. She’s years older than you. What does a maid of twenty want with a boy of sixteen?" "Twenty she is, and sixteen be I, but I’ve a deal more wisdom in my noddle than she, arter all. She’s a simple soul about pilchurs, and night-lines, and buildin’ boats, and all sorts o’ famous things I’ve knowed since I wer table-high, and she do have a tarrible thirst for high knowledge. She’ve a clever little head-piece, too, for when I wer tellin’ to she how pretty ’tis to see a otter divin’ for fish, who should come up-along but Doubledick——" "Did he see you?" interrupted Dick. "I wer just agoin’ to tell ’ee. No, ’a didn’t see me, ’cos I slipped behind Maidy, she being well growed, and says I, ’That feller is my ’nation enemy,’ says I, and afore I knowed wheer I wer, she whisked me into a little small cupboard place wi’ coats and boots hangin’ on the wall, and commanded me, in a feelin’ whisper, to bide theer till she toled me out. Drown me if I didn’ hear Doubledick go shailin’ past wi’ Maister John, and then there comed a rumblin’ through the wall, and I knowed they two was a-talkin’." "Did you hear what they said?" asked Dick eagerly. "Iss, I did. I hadn’ nawthin’ better to do, so I put my ear to the wall. Iss, I heerd a thing or two." "Well, what did you hear? Anything about Penwarden?" Sam had gradually pushed open the gate, and was now walking beside Dick. "Not a word. I wer so flambustered in bein’ poked in that hencoop of a place, and thinkin’ what they’d do to me if so be they catched me, that ’twas all mixed up, and I couldn’ tell A from B." "But think: you must have heard something clearly. You didn’t lose all your wits, did you?" "Well, I did hear Maister John say wind was steady, and ’a hoped ’t ’ud hold fair for business." "Yes: what then?" "Don’t ’ee bustle me; then maybe I’ll mind o’ more. Iss, I mind Doubledick said, ’Hee! hee!’ says he; ’if it do hold for another forty-eight hours,’ says he;—and be-jowned if I could hear any more o’ that piece of reckonin’, my poor heart was a-strummin’ so." "Confound your poor heart!" cried Dick. "Do pull yourself together. It may mean salvation to Joe." Sam scratched his head.