Hardly awake, Frank stumbled across the road, and mechanically touched his cap. The old gentleman stood beaming benignly at him through his spectacles.
“What do you want, my lad?” he said in a kind voice.
Directly Frank heard him speak he knew he could not be the schoolmaster, but the parson of the village. Parson at Danecross used to speak in the same sort of way. He felt ashamed to beg, and looked back at Barney for support, who immediately came slouching up with his white mice, and began to speak in his usual professional whine.
The old gentleman waved his hand impatiently.
“Stop,” he said; “I don’t want to hear any of those stories. You can’t impose upon me, so you needn’t try.” Then he turned to Frank. “Are you willing to work for your supper and a bed in the hay-loft to-night?”
“Oh yes, sir,” said Frank eagerly; “and so’s Barney too.”
The rector, for such he was, glanced somewhat doubtfully at Barney.
“Well,” he said, “there’s an hour’s weeding in my kitchen-garden that you can easily do before dark, and then you shall have bread and cheese, and may sleep in the loft. Where have you come from?”
He spoke to Frank, but the boy did not answer; and Barney, coming glibly to the rescue, had in a few moments woven an ingenious fable, in which he frequently referred to his companion as “his little brother.”
The rector listened without further question, but his shrewd grey eyes rested suspiciously on Barney when he had finished his story.