"But what sort of place has he on the moor?" asked Ned Hayward, beginning to get more and more interested in the pursuit of his inquiries; "how can I find it, my man?"
"It's not easy," answered his companion, "for it's built down in the pit. However, when you have crossed by the overgo, you will find a little path just before you, and if you go along that straight, without either turning to the right or the left, it will lead you right up to the moor. Then I'm sure I don't know how to direct you, for the roads go turning about in all manner of ways."
"Is it east, west, north, or south?" asked Captain Hayward, impatiently.
"Why east," answered the boy; "and I dare say if you go soon you will find the sun just peeping out over the moor in that direction. It's a pretty sight, and I've looked at it often to see the sunshine come streaming through the morning mist, and making all the green things that grow about there look like gold and purple, and very often, too, I've seen the blue smoke coming up out of the pit from Ste's cottage-chimney, Perhaps it may be so when you go, and then you'll easily find it."
"And whose park is it you speak of, boy?" said Ned Hayward. "There may be half-a-dozen about here."
"Why, Sir John Slingsby's," answered the boy, "that's the only one we call the park about here."
"Oh, then, I know it," rejoined the gentleman, stretching out his hand at the same time, and taking his purse from a chair that stood by his bedside; "there's a crown for you; and now carry off the boots and clothes, and get them brushed as fast as possible."
The boy did as he was told, took the crown with many thanks, gathered together the various articles of apparel which lay scattered about, and retired from the room. Ned Hayward, however, without waiting for his return, jumped out of bed, drew forth from one of his portmanteaus another complete suit of clothes, plunged his head, hands, and neck in cold water, and then mentally saying, "I will shave when I come back," he dressed himself in haste, and looked out for a moment into the yard, to see whether many of the members of the household were astir. There was a man at the very further end of the yard cleaning a horse, and just under the window, the little deformed pot-boy, whistling a plaintive air with the most exquisite taste, while he was brushing a coat and waistcoat. The finest and most beautiful player on the flageolet, never equalled the tones that were issuing from his little pale lips, and Ned Hayward could not refrain from pausing a moment to listen, but then putting on his hat, he hurried down stairs, and beckoned the boy towards him.
"Do not say that I am out, my man, unless any questions are asked," he said; "and when you have brushed the clothes, put them on a chair at the door."
The boy nodded significantly, and our friend, Ned Hayward, took his way out of the town in the direction that the boy had indicated. Of all the various bumps in the human head, the bump of locality is the foremost. This book the reader is well aware is merely a phrenological essay in a new form. So the bump of locality is the most capricious, whimsical, irrational, unaccountable, perverse, and unmanageable of all bumps. To some men it affords a faculty of finding their way about houses--I wish to Heaven it did so with me, for I am always getting into wrong rooms and places where I have no business--others it enables to go through all sorts of tortuous paths and ways almost by intuition; with others it is strong regarding government offices, and the places connected therewith; but in Ned Hayward it was powerful in the country, and it would have been a very vigorous ignis fatuus indeed that would lead him astray either on horseback or on foot. Three words of direction generally sufficed if they were clear, and he was as sure of his journey as if he knew every step of the way. There might be a little calculation in the thing--a sort of latent argumentation--for no one knew better that if a place lay due north, the best way to arrive at it was not to go due south, or was more clearly aware that in ordinary circumstances, the way into the valley was not to climb the hill; but Ned Hayward was rarely disposed to analyse any process in his own mind. He had always hated dissected puzzles even in his boyhood; and as his mind was a very good mind, he generally let it take its own way, without troubling it with questions. Thus he walked straight on out of the little town along the bank of the river, and finding himself interrupted, after about three miles, by the park-wall, he took a path through the fields to the left, then struck back again to the right, and soon after had a glimpse of the river again above its passage through Sir John Slingsby's park.