The way to Mocket’s lay down a steep hillside, and along the river-bank, under a drift of coloured leaves, and by the sound of falling water.  Mocket dwelt in a small house, in a small green yard with a broken gate.  A red creeper mantled the tiny porch, and lilac bushes, clucked under by a dozen hens, hedged the grassy yard.  As the hunter and Lewis Rand approached, a little girl, brown and freckled, barefoot and dressed in linsey, sprang up from the stone before the gate, and began to run towards the house.  Her foot caught in a trailing vine, and down she fell.  Adam was beside her at once.  “Why, you little partridge!” he exclaimed, and lifted her to her feet.

“It’s Vinie Mocket,” said his companion.  “Vinie, where’s your father?”

“I don’t know, thir,” answered Vinie.  “Tom knows.  Tom’s down there, at the big ship.  I’ll tell him.”

She slipped from Gaudylock’s clasp and pattered off toward the river, where the brig from Barbadoes showed hull and masts.  The hunter sat down upon the porch step, and drew out his tobacco pouch.  “She’s like a partridge,” he said.

“She’s just Vinie Mocket,” answered the boy.  “There’s a girl who stays sometimes at Mrs. Selden’s, on the Three-Notched Road.  She’s not freckled, and her eyes are big, and she never goes barefoot.  I reckon it’s silk she wears.”

“What’s her name?” asked the hunter, filling his pipe.

“Jacqueline—­Jacqueline Churchill.  She lives at Fontenoy.”

“Fontenoy’s a mighty fine place,” remarked Gaudylock.

“And the Churchills are mighty fine people.—­Here’s the partridge back, with another freckle-face.”

“That’s Tom Mocket,” said Lewis.  “If Vinie’s a partridge, Tom’s a weasel.”

The weasel, sandy-haired and freckled, came up the path with long steps.  “Hi, Lewis!  Father’s gone toward the market looking for your father.  That’s a brig from the Indies down there, and the captain’s our cousin—­ain’t he, Vinie?  I know who you are, sir.  You’re Adam Gaudylock, the great hunter!”

“So I am, so I am!” quoth Adam.  “Look here, little partridge, at what I’ve got in my pouch!”

The partridge busied herself with the beaded thing, and the two boys talked aside.  “I’ve till dinner time to do what I like in,” said Lewis Rand.  “Have you got to work?”

“Not unless I want to,” Young Mocket answered blissfully.  “Father, he don’t care!  Besides”—­he swelled with pride—­“I don’t work now at the wharf.  I’m at Chancellor Wythe’s.”

“Chancellor Wythe’s!  What are you doing there?”

“Helping him.  Maybe, by and by, I’ll be a lawyer, too.”

“Heugh!” said the other.  “Do you mean you’re reading law?”

“No-o, not just exactly.  But I let people in—­and I hear what they talk about.  I like it better than the wharf, anyhow.  I’ll go with you and show you things.  Is Mr. Gaudylock coming?”

“No,” replied Adam.  “I’ll finish my pipe, and take a look at the ship down there, and then I’ll meet a friend at the Indian Queen.  Be off with you both!  Vinie will stay and talk to me.”