m once;
but he did not answer, only bowed very low, with his hat off, which made
the people think him an idiot or a jester. They laughed heartily at him.
After a bit, it occurred to me that this old puppet-shaker always crept
into the ring (with his hat off to receive alms) whenever the Duke spoke
aside to Lord Grey, or to some other officer. I watched him narrowly to
make sure, because something in his manner made me suspect that he was
trying to catch what our leaders said to each other. I tried to recall
where I had seen the old man; for I had seen him before. He had been at
Exeter on the day we set out for Sidmouth, so much I remembered clearly;
but looking at him carefully, with my head full of memories of faces,
it seemed to me that he had been at Dorchester also. Surely an old man,
lame in the left leg like this man, had gone down a narrow lane in
front of me in Dorchester. I had not thought of it in Dorchester; but I
thought of it now, with a feeling that it was strange to meet again thus
in Lyme. I took good stock of the man, wondering if he were a spy.
He was a dirty old man enough. His dirty fingers poked through ragged
mittens. His cheeks were all swathed up in a woollen comforter. I made
the mistake of looking at him so hard that I made him look at me. Seeing
that I was staring at him, with a face full of suspicion, he walked
boldly up to me, holding out his hat for my charity. We stared at
each other, while he blew a blast on his pan-pipes, at which everybody
laughed.

"Come, come, boy," said Lord Grey to me, "we want those letters done.
Never mind about the puppets. Here, old man" (giving him a penny), "you
take yourself off now. Or are you going to enlist?"

The people laughed again at this, while the old man, after a flourish of
his hat to me, piped up lively quickstep, called "Jockeys to the Fair."

He disappeared after this. I did not see him again until our troubles
began, later in the morning. I was finishing off the last of my letters,
when some of our scouts rode in to make a grave report to the Duke. They
had ridden in pretty hard, their horses were lathered all over. They
themselves were in an internal lather; for they had just had their first
sight of war. They had come into touch (so they declared) with the
whole of Albemarle's militia, marching out to attack them. On being
questioned, it turned out that they had heard this from an excited
labourer who had run to them with the news, as they