This operation, which took time, and all Ben’s strength, did much to break the ice. It seemed to Ben exquisitely humorous that he should tumble nearly heels over head, clasping a muddied topboot to his chest. He began to giggle, forgetting his awe, and looked all at once much younger than John had at first supposed him to be. He disclosed, upon enquiry, that he was going on for eleven.

Having found a pair of pumps in his saddle-bag, John mixed himself a glass of hot rum and water, and sat down again with his legs stretched out before him, and his boots standing beside the hearth to dry. “That’s better,” he said, leaning his fair head against the high-back of the chair, and smiling sleepily across at his host. “Tell me, are we likely to be called out very often to open that gate?”

Ben shook his head. “No one don’t come this way after dark much,” he said. “ ’Sides, it’s raining fit to bust itself.”

“Good!” said John. “Where am I going to sleep?”

“You could have me dad’s bed,” suggested Ben doubtfully.

“Thank you, I will. Where do you think your dad may have gone to?”

“I dunno,” said Ben simply.

“Does he often go away like this?”

“No. He never done it afore—not like this. And he ain’t gone on the mop, because he ain’t no fuddlecap, not me dad. And if he don’t come back, they’ll put me on the Parish.”

“I expect he’ll come back,” said John soothingly. “Have you got any other relations? Brothers? Uncles?”

“I got a brother. Leastways, unless he’s been drownded, I have. He was pressed. I shouldn’t wonder if I was never to see him no more.”

“Lord, yes, of course you will!”

“Well, I don’t want to,” said Ben frankly. “He’s a proper jobbernoll, that’s what he is. Else they wouldn’t never have snabbled him. Me dad says so.”

If Ben possessed other relatives, he did not know of them.