ground. "When
one's mother is gone there is a hurting-place that nought doth ever
come into any more--excepting daddy, and--and thee. We shall miss thee,
Nick, at supper-times. Thou'lt come back soon?"

"I am na coming back."

"Not coming back?" She laid the mutton-pie down on the bench.

"No--I am na coming back"

"Never?"

"Never."

She looked at him as if she had not altogether understood.

Nick turned away. A strange uneasiness had come upon him, as if some one
were staring at him fixedly. But no one was. There was a Dutchman in the
gate who had not been there just before. "He must have sprung up out of
the ground," thought Nick, "or else he is a very sudden Dutchman!" He
had on breeches like two great meal-sacks, and a Flemish sea-cloth
jacket full of wrinkles, as if it had been lying in a chest. His back
was turned, and Nick could not help smiling, for the fellow's shanks
came out of his breeches' bottoms like the legs of a letter A. He looked
like a pudding on two skewers.

Cicely slowly took up the mutton-pie once more, but did not eat. "Is na
the pasty good?" asked Nick.

"Not now," said she.

Nick turned away again.

The Dutchman was not in the gate. He had crossed the inn-yard suddenly,
and was sitting close within the shadow of the wall, though the sunny
side was pleasanter by far. His wig was hanging down about his face,
and he was talking with the tapster's knave, a hungry-looking fellow
clad in rusty black as if some one were dead, although it was a holiday
and he had neither kith nor kin. The knave was biting his under lip and
staring straight at Nick.

"And will I never see thee more?" asked Cicely.

"Oh, yes," said Nick; "oh, yes."

But he did not know whether she ever would or no.

"Gee-wup, Dobbin! Yoicks, Ned! Tschk--tschk!" The leading cart rolled
slowly through the gate. A second followed it. The drivers made a
cracking with their whips, and all the guests came out to see them off.
But the Dutchman, as the rest came out, arose, and with the tapster's
knave went in at a narrow entrance beyond the tap-room steps.

"And when will Master Shakspere come for thee?" asked Cicely once more,
the cold pie lying in her lap.

"I do na know. How can I tell? Do na bother me so!" cried Nick, and dug
his heels into the cracks between the paving-stones; for after all that
had come to pass the starting of the baggage-train had made him sick
for home.

Cicely looked up at him; she thought sh