Upon the other side of the creek, sitting beneath a big sweet gum, and whittling away at a piece of stick weed, he found the boy who, the day before, had accused him of feeling as fine as the Lord Mayor of London. He sprang to his feet as Landless approached, and cheerfully remarking that their paths were the same, strode on side by side with him. "I say," he said presently with ingenuous frankness, "I asks your pardon for what I said to you yesterday. I dessay you make a very good Sec’tary, and Losh! the Lord Mayor himself might n’t have dared to strike that d—d fine Court spark. They say he has fought twenty duels." "You have my full forgiveness," said Landless, smiling. "That’s right!" cried the other, relieved. "I hates for a man to bear malice."’ "I have seen you before yesterday. I forget how they call you." "Dick Whittington." "Dick Whittington!" "Ay. Leastways the parish over yonder," a jerk of his thumb towards England, "called me Dick, and I names myself Whittington. And why? Because like that other Dick I runs away to make my fortune. Because like him I ’ve little besides empty pockets and a hopeful heart. And because I means to go back some fine day, jingling money, and wearing gold lace, and become the mayor of Banbury. Or maybe I ’ll stop in Virginia, and become a trader and Burgess. I could send for Joyce Witbread, and marry her here as well as in Banbury." Landless laughed. "So you ran away?" "Yes; some four years ago, just after I came to man’s estate." (He was about nineteen.) "Stowed myself away on board the Mary Hart at Plymouth. Made the Virginny voyage for my health, and on landing was sold by the captain for my passage money. Time ’s out in three years, but I may begin to make my fortune before then, for—" He stopped speaking to give Landless a sidelong glance from out his blue eyes, and then went on. "A voice speaks through the land, from the Potomac to the James, and from the falls of the Far West to the great bay. What says the voice?" Landless answered, "The voice saith, ’Comfort ye, my people, for the hour of deliverance is at hand.’" "It ’s all right!" cried the boy gleefully. "I thought you was one of us. We are all in the fun together!" "We are in for a desperate enterprise that may hang every man of us," said Landless sternly. "I do not see the ’fun,’ and I think you talk something loudly for a conspirator." The boy was nothing abashed. "There’s none to hear us," he said. "I can be as mum as t’ other Dick’s cat when there are ears around. As for fun, Losh! what better fun than fighting!" "You seem to have a pretty good time as it is." "Lord, yes! Life ’s jolly enough, but you see there ’s mighty little variety in it." "I have found variety enough," said Landless. "Oh, you ’ve been here only a few weeks. Wait until you’ve spent years, and have gone through your experience of to-day half a dozen times, and you will find it tame enough." "I shall not wait to see."