'for as sure as there is savour in salt,
and scent in rosemary, you will get no entrance--put your pipes up and
be jogging on.'

'Why, Dick Gardener,' said Skelton, 'be thou then turned porter?'

'What, do you know who I am?' said the domestic sharply.

'I know you, by your by-word,' answered the other; 'What, have you
forgot little Sam Skelton, and the brock in the barrel?'

'No, I have not forgotten you,' answered the acquaintance of Sam
Skelton; 'but my orders are peremptory to let no one up the avenue this
night, and therefore'--

'But we are armed, and will not be kept back,' said Nanty. 'Hark ye,
fellow, were it not better for you to take a guinea and let us in, than
to have us break the door first, and thy pate afterwards? for I won't
see my comrade die at your door be assured of that.'

'Why, I dunna know,' said the fellow; 'but what cattle were those that
rode by in such hurry?'

'Why, some of our folk from Bowness, Stoniecultrum, and thereby,'
answered Skelton; 'Jack Lowther, and old Jephson, and broad Will
Lamplugh, and such like.'

'Well,' said Dick Gardener, 'as sure as there is savour in salt, and
scent in rosemary, I thought it had been the troopers from Carlisle and
Wigton, and the sound brought my heart to my mouth.'

'Had thought thou wouldst have known the clatter of a cask from the
clash of a broadsword, as well as e'er a quaffer in Cumberland,' said
Skelton.

'Come, brother, less of your jaw and more of your legs, if you please,'
said Nanty; 'every moment we stay is a moment lost. Go to the ladies,
and tell them that Nanty Ewart, of the JUMPING JENNY, has brought
a young gentleman, charged with letters from Scotland to a certain
gentleman of consequence in Cumberland--that the soldiers are out, and
the gentleman is very ill and if he is not received at Fairladies he
must be left either to die at the gate, or to be taken, with all his
papers about him, by the redcoats.'

Away ran Dick Gardener with this message; and, in a few minutes, lights
were seen to flit about, which convinced Fairford, who was now, in
consequence of the halt, a little restored to self-possession, that they
were traversing the front of a tolerably large mansion-house.

'What if thy friend, Dick Gardener, comes not back again?' said Jephson
to Skelton.

'Why, then,' said the person addressed, 'I shall owe him just such a
licking as thou, old Jephson, had from Dan Cooke, and will pay as duly
and truly as he did.'