"But knew ye ever the like before," said John Alward, “ that his lordship should be in such haste to see their worships, he must needs have us tramping over the country at midnight? By the virtue of my belt, there must be a hot flavour in the news! It was a post haste letter."

"Tush, copperface! What have you to do with the flavour of the news? The virtue of thy belt, indeed! Precious little virtue is there within its compass, ha, ha! You have little to complain of, John Alward, for a midnight tramp. It is scant twelve miles from this to Mattapany, and thine errand is done. Thou mayest be snoozing on a good truss of hay in Master Sewall's stable before midnight, if you make speed. Think of my ride all the way to Notley Hall,—and round about by the head of the river too,-for I doubt if I have any chance to get a cast over the ferry tonight. Simon the boat-keeper is not often sober at this hour and if he was, a crustier

churl-the devil warm his pillow!-does n't He gets

live 'twixt this and the old world.

out of his sleep for no man."

"But it is a dark road mine,” replied the groom. "A plague upon it! I have no stomach for this bush and brier work, when a man can see the limb of a tree no more than a cobweb."

"A dark road!" exclaimed the master of the kennels, laughing. "A dark road, John! It is a long time, I trow, since there has been a dark road for thy night rides, with that nose shining like a lighted link a half score paces around thee. It was somewhat deadened last September, I allow, when you had the marsh ague, and the doctor fed you for a week on gruel-but it hath waxed lately as bright as ever. I wish I could buckle it to my headstrap until to-morrow morning."

A burst of laughter, at this sally, which rang through the hall, testified the effect of the falconer's wit, and brought the groom to his feet.

"'S blood, you grinning fools!" he ejaculated, "have n't you heard Derrick's joke a thousand times before, that you must toss up your scurvy ha-haws at it, as if it was new! He stole it-as the whole hundred knowsfrom the fat captain, old Dauntrees in the fort there; who would have got it back upon hue and cry, if it had been his own; but the truth is, the Captain filched it from a playbook, as the surveyor told him in my hearing at Garret Weasel's, where the Captain must needs have it for a laughing matter."

"It is a joke that burns fresh every night," replied Derrick; "a thing to make light of. So, up with the bottom of the pot, boy, and feed it with mother's milk: it will stand thee in stead to-night. Well done, John Alward! I can commend thee for taking a jest as well as another."

"Master Derrick," said the other, "this is not the way to do his Lordship's bidding: if we must go, we should be jogging now. I

would I had thy ride to take, instead of my own, short as you think it."

"Ha, say you that! By the rochet, John, you shall have it, an it please Master Secretary! But upon one condition.”

"Upon what condition?"

"That you tell me honestly why you would choose to ride twenty miles to Notley rather than twelve to Mattapany."

You

"Good Derrick," answered the groom, "it is but as a matter of good horsemanship. have a broader road, and mine is a path much beset with brushwood. I like not the peril of being unhorsed."

"There is a lie in thy face, John Alward;-the Mattapany road is the broadest and best of the two-is it not so, Pamesack?”

"It is the first that was opened by the white man," replied the Indian; " and more people pass upon it than the other."

"John," said the falconer, "you are a coward. I will not put you to the inventing an

other lie, but will wager I can tell you at one guess why you would change with me.”

"Out with it, Master Derrick!" exclaimed the bystanders.

"Oh, out with it!" repeated John Alward; "I heed not thy gibes."

"You fear the cross road," said the falconer; "you will not pass the fisherman's grave."

"In troth, masters, I must needs own," replied the groom, "that I have qualms. I never was ashamed to tell the truth, and confess that I am so much of a sinner as to feel an honest fear of the devil and his doings. I have known a horse to start and a rider to be flung at the cross road before now :-there are times in the night when both horse and rider may see what it turns one's blood into ice to look at. Nay, I am in earnest, masters :-I jest not."

"Thou hast honestly confessed, like a brave man, that thou art a coward, John Alward;