“Think of that, mother,” said Jack, in the highest glee. “Page to a gentleman like Sir Thomas Mowbray! And going to London! Was ever such luck?” “Luck, thou graceless varlet! when thou shouldest be on thy bare knees praying for forgiveness.” “Yes, that’s all fair and good, mother,” Jack answered, drily. “But, you see, the sheriff of Kent and his following might happen to come and interrupt my devotions. So I think horseback is safest.” “Away! Thou art incorrigible!” “I hope not,” said Mowbray. “But moments are diamonds. Find a horse for my page--I will see to the rest of his equipment. Why, how now, Jean! what the devil hast thou got there?” “I don’t know,” said Maître Jean, in French, riding leisurely up after the rest. “I found the thing in the cage when we let the rest of the boys loose. It looked very small to be in prison. And its little pig’s eyes twinkled so pitifully after its leader there, when you took him up behind you, that I was fain to carry the mite with me under my cloak. There, jump down, monkey.” And Maître Jean dropped among the straw of the courtyard a very small boy, clad in leather. He was a remarkable boy--apparently about eight years of age, though from his countenance he might have been eighty. His eyes were very far apart, and surmounted by gravely frowning brows. He had a good deal of nose for his age, and mouth enough for any age. He walked with a sort of defiant straddle, and was altogether a stolid, grim, unrelenting sort of boy. But he was absurdly little. “Let’s have a look at it,” said Mowbray, touching the stolid pigmy with his whip. “He’s very funny to be sure. What’s thy name?--Colbrand the Giant?” The queer little boy returned no answer; but stood, with his legs further apart than ever, gravely confronting his interrogator, and waiting to be whipped again. Young Jack Falstaff bustled up, leading out Brown Crecy,--the only good horse on the estate,--hastily saddled for the journey. “Don’t hurt little Peter, Sir Thomas,” he said. “He would come with us this morning: when we talked of leaving him behind, on account of his size, he cried,--a thing he had never been known to do before, though he gets more thrashings than any boy in these parts. Indeed, it was he found the buck for us. It’s no use trying to make him talk--he won’t. Poor little man! he is very fond of me, and will be sorry to lose me.” A snort was heard from Peter, who was discovered, to the astonishment of all familiar bystanders, to be in tears, for the second time in his life. “The son of a--ahem!--keeper of mine, Sir Thomas,” put in Sir Gilbert Falstaff, who had sneaked out on the assurance of safety, and began to think, with the unexpected turn things had taken, that a little deer-stealing was no bad family investment. “I am ashamed that gentlemen of your rank should have been troubled by a single thought for such vermin. Out of the way, thou beggar’s scum!”