So much in the sunlight. And yet again I had a cause for joy and pride because the monk had declared me noble. How to prove it I knew not, but resolved that when my lord was come hither again I would tell him all, and he would somehow unriddle me the secret and I should be no longer nameless. My breakfast I had beneath the shade of Sir Walter’s myrtles, where he had made his favorite seat. It was brought thither by that good Sukey who had nearly drowned my lord the first time she beheld him smoking that weed called tobacco, which he had brought from his settlement in Virginia. For she conceived him to be on fire, and half-drowned him that she might put him out. I had my white manchet and roast beef and flagon of ale, and had a fine hunger for it after my morning swim. But when it had all vanished I strolled away to the stable-yard, where Gregory Dabchick rubbed down one of my lord’s horses, and hissed between his teeth as is the manner of ostlers in the doing. He was a shock-headed fellow, of slow wits, but honest, and loved my lord. “It be lonely, Master Wat,” he said, “since the master be gone.” “Gregory Dabchick,” said I, “you were of Sir Walter’s following the day the Seneschal of Imokilly set upon him at the Ford of the Kine.” “Ay,” he said, grinning, “and Jan was spilt in the water. He got up dripping like a fish, and when the Captain haled him to dry land, and he would mount his beast he overleapt him and a good horse galloped into the forest and so became the goods of the Irishry. I wish,” he added, “that Margery May, at home in pleasant Devon, might have looked on Jan then.” “I have nothing to do with your jealousies,” I said, as haughty as though I were my lord’s son. “But tell me, Gregory, do you remember me that day?” “A brown babby, as fat as ever I see,” Gregory answered, still rubbing down his horse. “And as near being spitted by Dan’l Drewe as ever I wish to see. I never liked that work myself, killing o’ babes and sucklings, and fair women, or leaving the babe to die on its mother’s breast. ’Twere lucky for you, Master Wat, them that starved in the forest did not eat you, ere ever you came the way o’ Dan’l’s mercy. Eh, what a fat one you were!” “But a comely, Gregory?” I asked anxiously. “A noble child? Was I that? And clad in silk and fine woollen, as became my condition?” “Why, no, Master Walter, but a fat, brown babe; eh, so fat! And nought but rabbit-skins to cover you. You had been good eating for them in the forest.” “You are rude and dull, Gregory,” said I, leaving him in dudgeon. As I looked back I saw that he had come to the stable door and stood watching me with a gaping mouth. Plainly there was nothing to be learned from Gregory Dabchick. CHAPTER III.—OF MY SECRET, THE LORD BOYLE, AND OTHER MATTERS.