He will remember to his life’s end the delights of those days.  He was taken to see a play by Monsieur Blaise, in a house a thousand times greater and finer than the booth at Ealing Fair—­and on the next happy day they took water on the river, and Harry saw London Bridge, with the houses and booksellers’ shops thereon, looking like a street, and the Tower of London, with the Armor, and the great lions and bears in the moat—­all under company of Monsieur Blaise.

Presently, of an early morning, all the party set forth for the country, namely, my Lord Viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise and Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leading the baggage-horses.  And all along the road the Frenchman told little Harry stories of brigands, which made the child’s hair stand on end, and terrified him; so that at the great gloomy inn on the road where they lay, he besought to be allowed to sleep in a room with one of the servants, and was compassionated by Mr. Holt, the gentleman who travelled with my lord, and who gave the child a little bed in his chamber.

His artless talk and answers very likely inclined this gentleman in the boy’s favor, for next day Mr. Holt said Harry should ride behind him, and not with the French lacky; and all along the journey put a thousand questions to the child—­as to his foster-brother and relations at Ealing; what his old grandfather had taught him; what languages he knew; whether he could read and write, and sing, and so forth.  And Mr. Holt found that Harry could read and write, and possessed the two languages of French and English very well; and when he asked Harry about singing, the lad broke out with a hymn to the tune of Dr. Martin Luther, which set Mr. Holt a-laughing; and even caused his grand parrain in the laced hat and periwig to laugh too when Holt told him what the child was singing.  For it appeared that Dr. Martin Luther’s hymns were not sung in the churches Mr. Holt preached at.

“You must never sing that song any more:  do you hear, little mannikin?” says my Lord Viscount, holding up a finger.

“But we will try and teach you a better, Harry,” Mr. Holt said; and the child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, “That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him.”  That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day before, waited upon him now.

“’Tis well, ’tis well!” said Blaise, that night (in his own language) when they lay again at an inn.  “We are a little lord here; we are a little lord now:  we shall see what we are when we come to Castlewood, where my lady is.”

“When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?” says Harry.