hands. Wait for an answer, and bring it back to me here. If you
should find that Mr Haredale is engaged just now, tell him--can he
remember a message, landlord?'

'When he chooses, sir,' replied John. 'He won't forget this one.'

'How are you sure of that?'

John merely pointed to him as he stood with his head bent forward, and
his earnest gaze fixed closely on his questioner's face; and nodded
sagely.

'Tell him then, Barnaby, should he be engaged,' said Mr Chester, 'that
I shall be glad to wait his convenience here, and to see him (if he will
call) at any time this evening.--At the worst I can have a bed here,
Willet, I suppose?'

Old John, immensely flattered by the personal notoriety implied in this
familiar form of address, answered, with something like a knowing look,
'I should believe you could, sir,' and was turning over in his mind
various forms of eulogium, with the view of selecting one appropriate to
the qualities of his best bed, when his ideas were put to flight by Mr
Chester giving Barnaby the letter, and bidding him make all speed away.

'Speed!' said Barnaby, folding the little packet in his breast, 'Speed!
If you want to see hurry and mystery, come here. Here!'

With that, he put his hand, very much to John Willet's horror, on the
guest's fine broadcloth sleeve, and led him stealthily to the back
window.

'Look down there,' he said softly; 'do you mark how they whisper in each
other's ears; then dance and leap, to make believe they are in sport?
Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think there is no one
looking, and mutter among themselves again; and then how they roll and
gambol, delighted with the mischief they've been plotting? Look at
'em now. See how they whirl and plunge. And now they stop again, and
whisper, cautiously together--little thinking, mind, how often I have
lain upon the grass and watched them. I say what is it that they plot
and hatch? Do you know?'

'They are only clothes,' returned the guest, 'such as we wear; hanging
on those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind.'

'Clothes!' echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling
quickly back. 'Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as wise
as you! You don't see shadowy people there, like those that live in
sleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts
when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men
stalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier li