sense of relief at that coming, and yet was somehow sorry. Then he took
the ball, and knew enough to bow his acknowledgment in a manner neither
ill nor awkward.

"Didst thou hurt thyself?" asked Lady Anne.

"Nay," said Myles, giving himself a shake; "seest thou not I be whole,
limb and bone? Nay, I have had shrewdly worse falls than that. Once I
fell out of an oak-tree down by the river and upon a root, and bethought
me I did break a rib or more. And then one time when I was a boy in
Crosbey-Dale--that was where I lived before I came hither--I did catch
me hold of the blade of the windmill, thinking it was moving slowly, and
that I would have a ride i' th' air, and so was like to have had a fall
ten thousand times worse than this."

"Oh, tell us more of that!" said the Lady Anne, eagerly. "I did never
hear of such an adventure as that. Come, coz, and sit down here upon the
bench, and let us have him tell us all of that happening."

Now the lads upon the other side of the wall had been whistling
furtively for some time, not knowing whether Myles had broken his neck
or had come off scot-free from his fall. "I would like right well to
stay with ye," said he, irresolutely, "and would gladly tell ye that and
more an ye would have me to do so; but hear ye not my friends call me
from beyond? Mayhap they think I break my back, and are calling to see
whether I be alive or no. An I might whistle them answer and toss me
this ball to them, all would then be well, and they would know that I
was not hurt, and so, haply, would go away."

"Then answer them," said the Lady Anne, "and tell us of that thing thou