"I am glad to hear it," was the gardener's quiet comment as he went out.
[CHAPTER IX]
CAUGHT!
"GOOD-NIGHT, my boy."
"Good-night, Mr. Jonathan," said Robin as he turned the corner by the lodge to go towards his home the following evening.
The old man shaded his eyes with his hand as he watched the retreating figure for some distance, until a bend in the lane hid him from view, then said aloud as he entered his house, "There is something wrong with the lad, and I cannot come at it; he is no more like the same boy he was three months ago than a fresh rose is like the withered one I have just thrown away. What can it be? Bad companions, perhaps; but I never see him about with any of the town lads. I wonder if his mother notices the difference."
Jonathan was about to seat himself in his big arm-chair for a good rest, when suddenly he recollected there was something he had forgotten to see to in one of the glass-houses; so, taking his knotted stick from behind the door, he once more began to trudge slowly up the avenue. Did his eyes deceive him? It was surely Robin that he saw leaping over the fence and running across the field as if for his life. Why did he come that way? Was he going to the house? Yes; he opened the white gate leading to the back premises, and presently disappeared.
Jonathan's first impulse was to meet him in the field on his return, and question him as to his errand; but the old man knew his stiff legs would not reach thus far in time, the boy was flying at such a rate. He therefore hid himself behind a large tree, and from his place of concealment saw Robin a few minutes after return through the gate, and by the same short cut regain the high road. But he had a basket on his arm! Where was he taking it to? Why did he come back to fetch it? Here was an explanation of the boy's restless impatient manner when detained at the lodge gate for a few moments before wishing him good-night.
"There is something underhand going on," muttered old Jonathan sadly. "I was sure of it. The poor lad could not look me in the face to-day when I asked him a question; he got scarlet when I mentioned cook's name. What can it be? He has got into a thorny path, and I must see him out of it, even though my own hands get torn. I will be his friend, whatever it costs; and I pray God we may see the right side of this business before long."
While his dear old teacher and friend was thus sadly musing over what he had just seen, Robin, wholly unconscious of detection, was doing his utmost to make up for the time so unwillingly lost while talking to Jonathan at the lodge. But he had not got more than half-way when he heard the sonorous tones of a church clock warning him that the hour had come when he had promised his mother he would try to be at home. She had said she wanted him particularly.