Presently the squire led them to the dining room, where a bountiful meal was spread--so bountiful that Tommy, already predisposed for friendship, rapidly thawed into intimacy.

Both the squire and his son seemed intent on amusing him, and Tommy took the evident effort for the unaccomplished deed--for, in truth, the stories that they told were almost unintelligible to him, though, to the others, they appeared humorous enough.

Presently the squire grew even more affectionate. He had always loved boys, he said, and Tommy was not to forget it. He was a stern enemy, but a good friend, and Tommy was not to forget it. He would always be proud to shake hands with Tommy, wherever he met him, and Tommy was to keep this in remembrance.

Presently he retired to the sofa, with a cigar, which he was continually dropping.

The young man winked, genially, at Tommy.

"He always gets sleepy about this time," he explained.

"Sleepy?" interrupted his father, "not a bit of it. See here," and he filled the three gla.s.ses once more from the decanter.

"To the master of Camslove Grange," he cried, lifting his gla.s.s. And they drank the health, standing.

As Tommy walked home over the starlit fields, the scene came back to him.

The old man, wheezy but gracious, his son flushed and handsome, the panelled walls and their trophies, and the sparkling gla.s.ses--a brave picture.

True--he was still sore, but the episode of the farmer and his stick seemed infinitely remote, and Madge and the pale boy, ghosts of an era past: for had he not drunk of the good red wine, and kept company with gentlemen?

X

IN WHICH I RECEIVE TWO WARNINGS, AND NEGLECT ONE

I suppose that, by this time, I had grown fond of Tommy, in a very real way, for, as the weeks pa.s.sed by, I was quick to notice the change in the boy.

There was a suggestion of swagger and an a.s.sumption of manliness in his manner, that troubled me.

I noticed, too, that he avoided many of his old haunts.

Often he would strike out across the downs and be away from early morning until starlight, and concerning his adventures he would be strangely reticent.

But I do not profess to have fathomed the ways and moods of boys, and I merely shrugged my shoulders, perhaps a little sorrowfully.

"I suppose he is growing up," thought I. And yet, for all that, I could not keep myself from wondering what influence was at work upon the boy's development. Even the doctor, who, of us all, saw the least of him, noticed the change, for he asked me suddenly, one late September day,

"What's the matter with Tommy?"

I looked at him with feigned surprise.

"I--he's all right, isn't he?"

The doctor shook his head.

"He has altered very much this summer, and I am afraid the alteration has not been good."

I cut at a nettle with my walking-stick.

"He is growing, of course."

The doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Then you have noticed nothing else--nothing in his demeanour or conversation--or friends?"

I abandoned my defences.

"Yes, I have noticed it, and I cannot understand it--and I am sorry for it."

"When does he return to school?"

"To-morrow."

The doctor appeared to be thinking. In a minute he looked into my face.

"It is a good thing, on the whole," he said, adding slowly.

"Don't drive the boy; let him forget."

He drove away, and I looked after him in some wonderment, for his words seemed enigmatical.

As I walked back to my garden I could hear Tommy whistling in his bedroom. There was a light in the room, and I could see him, half undressed, fondling one of his white rats. I remembered how he had insisted on their company and smiled.

"Sir."

From the shadow of the hedge a voice addressed me.

"Sir."

"Hullo," I said. Then, as I peered through the gloom, I saw a young woman standing before me, and, even in the dusk, I could read the eagerness in her eyes.

Her face was familiar.

"Surely I know you?" I asked.

"I'm Liza Berrill."

She spoke rapidly; yet, over her message she seemed hesitant.

Then:

"Oh, sir, don't let him be friends wi' that gentleman."

I stared.