After the ivy had moved for a moment, as I have said, something like a human head was thrust out, looking cautiously round the court. The next minute a broad pair of shoulders appeared, and then the whole form of a tall and powerful man, who, after pausing for an instant on the top of the broken wall, used its fragments as a means of descent to the ground below. Just as he reached the level of the court, one of the loose stones which he had displaced as he came down, rolled after him and fell at his side; and, with a sudden start at the first sound, he laid his hand on the butt of a large horse-pistol stuck in a belt round his waist. As soon as he perceived what it was that had alarmed him, he took his hand from the weapon again, and walked out into the moonlight; and thence, after pacing quietly up and down for two or three minutes, to give time for the two other visitors of the castle to get to a distance, he sauntered slowly out through the gate. He then turned under the walls towards the little wood which at that time occupied a part of the valley; opposite to which he stood gazing for about five minutes. When he judged all safe, he gave a whistle, upon which the form of a boy instantly started out from the trees, and came running across the meadow towards him. "Have you heard all, Mr. Mowle?" asked the boy in a whisper, as soon as he was near. "All that they said, Little Starlight," replied the other. "They didn't say enough; but yet it will do; and you are a clever little fellow. But come along," he added, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, "you shall have what I promised you, and half-a-crown more; and if you go on, and tell me all you find out, you shall be well paid." Thus saying, he walked on with the boy towards Hythe, and the scenery round Saltwood resumed its silent solitude again. CHAPTER VII. To a very hungry man, it matters not much what is put upon the table, so that it be eatable; but with the intellectual appetite the case is different, and every one is anxious to know who is to be his companion, or what is to be in his book. Now, Sir Edward Digby was somewhat of an epicure in human character; and he always felt as great a curiosity to enjoy any new personage brought before him, as the more ordinary epicure desires to taste a new dish. He was equally refined, too, in regard to the taste of his intellectual food. He liked a good deal of flavour, but not too much: a soupçon of something, he did not well know what, in a man's demeanour gave it great zest, as a soupçon of two or three condiments so blended in a salmi as to defy analysis must have charmed Vatel; and, to say the truth, the little he had seen or heard of the house in which he now was, together with his knowledge of some of its antecedents, had awakened a great desire for a farther taste of its quality.