reading or playing chess. If he went up to the Hall at nine o'clock he
would be sure of a welcome.

The evening passed slowly for Desmond in his enforced idleness. At nine
o'clock, leaving his bundle in a hollow tree, he set off toward the Hall,
taking a short cut across the fields. It was a dark night, and he stopped
with a start as, on descending a stile overhung by a spreading sycamore,
he almost struck against a person who had just preceded him.

"Who's that?" he asked quickly, stepping back a little: it was unusual to
meet anyone in the fields at so late an hour.

"Be that you, Measter Desmond?"

"Oh, 'tis you, Dickon. What are you doing this way at such an hour? You
ought to have been abed long ago."

"Ay, sure, Measter Desmond; but I be goin' to see squire," said the old
man, apparently with some hesitation.

"That's odd. So am I. We may as well walk together, then--for fear of the
ghosts, eh, Dickon?"

"I binna afeard o' ghosts, not I. True, 'tis odd I be goin' to see
squire. I feel it so. Squire be a high man, and I ha' never dared lift up
my voice to him oothout axen. But 'tis to be. I ha' summat to tell him,
low born as I be; ay, I mun tell him, cost what it may."

"Well, he's not a dragon. I have something to tell him too--cost what it
may."