"Well! mighty well!" answered the landlord, "all just as it was, I think. No! poor old Milson, the sexton, is dead: he had buried four generations of us, and the fifth has buried him. He caught cold at the justice room, giving evidence about that robbery, you remember, out upon the moor; and took to his bed and died." "Which robbery do you mean?" demanded the other; "there were many going on about that time upon the moor and over the hill. Have there been any lately?" "Not one since you left the country, Master Harry," replied the landlord. "I hope you do not mean to hint that I had any hand in them," rejoined his companion, with a smile. "God forbid!" exclaimed good Gregory Myrtle--"Haw, haw, haw! That was a funny slip of mine! No, no, Master Harry, we know you too well; you are more likely to give away all your own than take a bit of other people's, God bless you!" "I think, indeed, I am," answered the young man, with a sigh; "but if I talk with you much longer, I shall be too late to rob the stream of its trout. Don't forget, Myrtle, to send up to the Manor for leave for me, as usual. I suppose his worship is awake by this time, or will be, by the time my tackle is all ready;" and so saying, he sauntered on down the street, took the pathway by the bridge, and turning along by the bank of the river, was soon lost to the sight. CHAPTER II. Sometimes in bright sunny expanse over a broad shallow bed of glittering stones and sand; sometimes in deep pools under high banks bending with shrubs and trees; sometimes winding through a green meadow; sometimes quick and fretful; sometimes slow and sullen; on flowed the little river on its course, like a moody and capricious man amidst all the various accidents of life. Beginning his preparations close to the bridge, upon a low grassy bank which ran out from the buttress, and afforded a passage round beneath the arches, the stranger, whom the landlord had called Master Harry, had not yet completed all the arrangement of his fishing-tackle, when one of those servants--who, in the great hall, were as famous for a good-humoured idleness in that day, as their successors are for an insolent idleness in the present times, and were known by the familiar name of _blue-bottles_--made his appearance, carrying his goodly personage with a quick step towards the fisherman. The infinite truth generally to be found in old sayings was never more happily displayed than in the proverb, "Like master like man!" and if so, a pleasant augury of the master's disposition was to be derived from the demeanour of his messenger. As he came near he raised his hand, touched his cap respectfully, though the fisherman was dressed in kersey; and, with a grave, complacent smile, wished him good morning.