"Ah! He won't be atwitting me again for what he calls 'a mean thing, a senseless, a wicked'—we shan't be hearing no more that a liar is 'a sneak, a coward, a fool!'"
"Don't make too sure of that, my lad!" cried a loud cheery voice at the door.
Bessy and Dan both started up in surprise, as Mr. Curtis and the sailor entered the cottage.
"Well, if ever! Is he cleared?" exclaimed Bessy, reading an answer at once in the beaming face of her brother.
"Yes, cleared, come off with flying colours," said the vicar; "truth has ever the victory at last."
"Why," exclaimed the wondering Dan, "here comes Sir Lacy himself, at this hour of the day!"
In bustled the knight with his flushed face and his bushy white whiskers, but looking a different man from what he had done on the previous day. Notwithstanding a violent temper, which led often to passion, and not unfrequently to injustice, there was something kindly and generous still in the character of Sir Lacy.
"I could not rest," he said, as to the utter amazement of the Peeles, he held out his hand to the sailor, "I could not rest till I had told you how much I regret yesterday's mistake. But you'll own that appearances were against you."
"Ay, ay, sir, things looked ill," replied Ned.
"I should wish—I should like," began the knight, half pulling a sovereign out of his waistcoat pocket, but Ned instinctively drew back, with a feeling utterly incomprehensible to Mrs. Peele and her son.