s verified that
homely proverb that listeners never hear good of themselves.

"Sit down, my friend," said the elder of the twain, a man of rough dress
and hard hands, but good, straightforward aspect, and that careless
humor which generally comes from a life of adventures, and a long
acquaintance with the world's caprice. "I have brought you here that we
may be undisturbed. Little pitchers have long ears. My daughter is as
true as steel; but this matter is not for her at present. You are sure,
then, that Sir Duncan is come home at last? And he wished that I should
know it?"

"Yes, sir, he wished that you should know it. So soon as I told him that
you was here, and leading what one may call this queer life, he slapped
his thigh like this here--for he hath a downright way of everything--and
he said, 'Now, Smithies, so soon as you get home, go and tell him that I
am coming. I can trust him as I trust myself; and glad I am for one
old friend in the parts I am such a stranger to. Years and years I have
longed to know what was become of my old friend Bert.' Tears was in his
eyes, your honor: Sir Duncan hath seen such a mighty lot of men, that
his heart cometh up to the few he hath found deserving of the name,
sir."

"You said that you saw him at York, I think?"

"Yes, sir, at the business house of his agent, one Master Geoffrey
Mordacks. He come there quite unexpected, I believe, to see about
something else he hath in hand, and I got a message to go there at once.
I save his life once in India, sir, from one of they cursed Sours, which
made him take heed of me, and me of him. And then it come out where
I come from, and why; and the both of us spoke the broad Yorkshire
together, like as I dea naa care to do to home. After that he got on
wonderful, as you know; and I stuck to him through the whole of it, from
luck as well as liking, till, if I had gone out to see to his breeches,
I could not very well have knowed more of him. And I tell you, sir, not
to regard him for a Yordas. He hath a mind far above them lot; though I
was born under them, to say so!"

"And you think that he will come and recover his rights, in spite of his
father's will against him. I know nothing of the ladies of the Hall; but
it seems a hard thing to turn them out, after being there so long."

"Who was turned out first, they or him? Five-and-twenty years of tent,
open sky, jungle, and who knows what, for him--but eider-down, and
fireside, and fat of