“Yes I do. But he hates me though, I do believe,” said the youth, with a sigh.
“He discharged you from the farm, I suppose. What was it for? getting drunk, or poaching?”
“Neither. I wasn’t discharged at all. I left on my own account. If I wanted to work about these parts, I could get plenty to do from Sir Richard Warbeck, at Darlington Hall, that white house yonder on the hill, among that cluster of old oak trees.”
“You know Sir Richard Warbeck, then?”
“Aye, and have done this many a year; his adopted sons, too—Charley, as is now in London, and Wildfire Ned, as we call the brave lad, as lives up the Hall. I know ’em both, well.”
“You seem to know all about the people living around Darlington, I perceive.”
“I do. Who should know ’em better than me?”
“Who are you, then, my friend?” said the horseman, with a quick glance.
“They call me Rambling Bob, but Bob Bertram is my real name.”
“Bob Bertram?” said the stranger, with a glittering eye. “What, the only son of Farmer Bertram of Four Ash Farm?”