"You don't mean to say," cried Bessy, "that with your ridiculous notions about truth, you'll run into a trap with your eyes wide open, and get yourself disgraced, and locked up in jail! What's the use, I should like to know, of your telling the world that you were in the woods hunting a lame squirrel like a boy!"
"I shall say nothing about the matter," answered Ned, "unless—"
"Hist! Hist!" exclaimed Dan, starting up. "If there ben't Sir Lacy himself, and the vicar, the constable, gamekeeper, and all! And they're coming here!" he added, in alarm.
"Oh, Ned, Ned!" exclaimed Bessy, "Whatever you do, don't own that you ever got in them woods."
[CHAPTER VI.]
A STORM.
NED rose from his seat on the entrance of the two gentlemen; the constable and gamekeeper remained at the door. Conscious of innocence, the sailor confronted the knight with a quiet composure which astonished his sister and Dan.
Sir Lacy was a short, thickly-built man, with bushy white whiskers, and white hair, round a face whose usually pink hue was now flushed to a deeper tint. His round, grey, prominent eyes, with their expression of proud domineering insolence, disagreeably reminded Ned Franks of those of the knight's namesake and son.
"Your name is Ned Franks," said Sir Lacy at once, without deigning to take any notice of Mrs. Peele and her low curtsies.
"At your service, sir," answered Ned.