"But for your timely help I should have been sorely hurt for a certainty," remarked Gilbert; and then after a brief pause he added: "Prithee, how shall I reward you withal?"
"Nay, I need no reward, and will take none," returned Timothy.
"Yea, but you shall have a suitable recompense; for it hath cost you something as I see," said Gilbert. "Look at your doublet, 'tis torn down the front. And you have scratched your face too."
Timothy examined into his own hurts and said with a careless smile:
"Tut! 'tis nothing. Both the rent and the scratch will easily mend; whereas if your worship had fallen to the ground it must surely have been a matter for the physician, and haply a month's idleness in your bed. And now, so please you, we will, if you are ready, climb down again, for Sir Richard Grenville is calling to you, bidding you tell him if you are hurt."
When the two had got down to the ground again, it was to find that Drusilla had run off to a farther end of the meadow, where a double row of giant trees marked the long avenue leading up from the lodge gates to Modbury Manor. From where he stood Timothy could hear the sound of horses' feet and the jingling of stirrups and harness. It was the hawking party returning from the chase, and not until he saw them among the trees of the avenue did he remember the resolve he had made a little while before, to seek out his lordship's steward and ask him for work in the stables. Turning to Master Gilbert Oglander, who was on the point of following Drusilla, Timothy ventured to say:
"I beg your honour's pardon, but since you were so gracious a moment ago as to offer me a favour in return for the slight help I gave you, I have a boon that I would ask of you."
"Name it," demanded Gilbert.
"Ay, name it, lad," urged Sir Richard Grenville, playfully slapping Tim on his broad back. "Thou'rt a deserving boy, that hath the makings of a man in him, and shalt have whatsoever boon thou dost name. So out with it, and be not over-modest in thy request."