"Jack Owlet! Oh my! Hoo! hoo!" exclaimed the blacking boy, as soon as Lavinia had disappeared up the stairs, dancing about with his hands on his hips. "Look here, Tom,"--to a boy with a pail, who had just come in--"here be an Owlet's just flown in out of the mud. Hoo! hoo! Where did you get that 'ere patch on your back." "Where you never got none," responded the other boy. "Mother stitched it for him." "Ay, sitting under a hedge, with her pot hung up on three sticks and a hedgepig in it," added the younger Boots. "Come, own up, young gipsy! Yer come to get a tanner out of Number Seven with your tales." "I'm no gipsy," growled John; "but--" "Come, come," called out Boots, "none of your row. And you, you impudent tramp, don't ye be larking about here, making the lads idle. Get out of the yard with ye, or I call the master to you." The landlord might probably have been far more civil; but poor Johnnie did not know this, and could only move off to the entrance of the court, so that when Lavinia in another moment appeared and asked where he was, Boots answered-- "How should I tell? He was up to mischief with the boys, and I bade him be off." "Well, Number Seven is ever so much put about, and he said he would be down in a jiffy! So there!" Lavinia held up her skirts, and began in her white stockings to pick her way across the yard, while Boots sneered, and began brushing his shoe, and whistling as if quite undisturbed; and in another moment Captain Carbonel did appear, coming down the stairs very fast, all unshaven, and with a few clothes hastily thrown on, and quite ran after Lavinia, passing her as she pointed out beyond the entrance, where John was disconsolately leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, feeling how utterly weary and hungry he was, and with uneasy thoughts about his father coming over him. "Oh, there you are, John Hewlett! What is it? No one ill?" exclaimed the captain. "No, sir; but,"--coming nearer and lowering his voice--"Jack Swing, sir." "Jack Swing! We had notice of him out at Delafield." John shook his head, and looked down. "What! Do you know anything, my boy? Here, come in--tell me!" "Please, sir, they've laid it out to come to Greenhow this very day as is, to break the machine and get the guns and money." The captain started, as well he might; but still demanded, "How do you know?" John held his head down, most unwilling to answer. "Look here, my lad, you've done well coming to warn me; but I must be certain of your news before acting on it. We were to ride off to Delafield to-day, and I must know if this is only a rumour." "Aunt heard them," said John, between his teeth. "She heard them planning it for to-morrow--that's to-day--and she laid it on me to let you know to save the ladies from being fraught." "Your aunt heard it?" "Through the window in the back garden. They planned to get all the chaps at Downhill and all, and go at the machine."