"Gentlemen on an ambassage don't read their despatches to every springald they see by the roadside. Here, jump up, and show us the way, and I'll ask Sir Morton Darley to give you a stoup of wine for your trouble, or milk and water." "You ask Sir Morton to give you wine!" cried the lad angrily. "Why, who are you, to dare such a thing?" "What!" roared the man. "Dare? Who talks to Captain Purlrose, his Highness's trusted soldier, about dare?" and he put on a tremendously fierce look, blew out his cheeks, drew his brows over his eyes, and slapped his sword-hilt heavily, as if to keep it in its sheath, for fear it should leap out and kill the lad, adding, directly after, in a hoarse whisper: "Lie still, good sword, lie still." All this theatrical display was evidently meant to awe the lad, but instead of doing so, it made him angry, for he flushed up, and said quickly: "I dare," and the men laughed. "You dare!" cried the leader; "and pray, who may you be, my bully boy?" "I don't tell my name to every ragged fellow I meet in the road," said the boy haughtily. "What!" roared the man, clapping his hand upon the hilt of his blade, an action imitated by his followers. "Keep your sword in its scabbard," said Ralph, without wincing in the least. "If you have business with my father, this way." He sprang to his feet now, and gazed fiercely at the stranger. "What?" cried the man, in a voice full of exuberant friendliness, which made the lad shrink in disgust, "you the son of Sir Morton Darley?" "Yes: what of it?" "The son of my beloved old companion-in-arms? Boy, let me embrace thee." To Ralph's horror, the man took a step forward, and would have thrown his arms about his neck; but by a quick movement the lad stepped back, and the men laughed to see their leader grasp the wind. "Don't do that," said Ralph sternly. "Do you mean to say that you want to speak to my father?" "Speak to him? Yes, to fly to the hand of him whom I many a time saved from death. And so you are the son of Morton Darley? And a brave-looking, manly fellow too. Why, I might have known. Eye, nose, curled-up lip. Yes: all there. You are his very reflection, that I ought to have seen in the looking-glass of memory. Excuse this weak moisture of the eyes, boy. The sight of my old friend's son brings up the happy companionship of the past. Time flies fast, my brave lad. Your father and I were hand and glove then. Never separate. We fought together, bled together, and ah! how fate is partial in the way she spreads her favours! Your father dresses his son in velvet; while I, poor soldier of fortune--I mean misfortune--am growing rusty; sword, morion, breast-plate, body battered, and face scarred by time." "Aren't we going to have something to eat and drink, captain?" growled one of the men, with an ugly scowl. "Ay, brave boys, and soon," cried the leader. "Then, leave off preaching, captain, till we've got our legs under a table."