"Poor boy! I suppose that burly brute is your schoolmaster, and you are running away home for fear of a flogging."
The boy burst out laughing; a pretty, silvery, merry laugh: it thrilled through Kenelm Chillingly. "No, he would not flog me: he is not a schoolmaster; he is worse than that."
"Is it possible? What is he?"
"An uncle."
"Hum! uncles are proverbial for cruelty; were so in the classical days, and Richard III. was the only scholar in his family."
"Eh! classical and Richard III.!" said the boy, startled, and looking attentively at the pensive driver. "Who are you? you talk like a gentleman."
"I beg pardon. I'll not do so again if I can help it."—"Decidedly," thought Kenelm, "I am beginning to be amused. What a blessing it is to get into another man's skin, and another man's gig too!" Aloud, "Here we are at the fingerpost. If you are running away from your uncle, it is time to inform me where you are running to."
Here the boy leaned over the gig and examined the fingerpost. Then he clapped his hands joyfully.
"All right! I thought so, 'To Tor-Hadham, eighteen miles.' That's the road to 'Tor-Hadham."
"Do you mean to say I am to drive you all that way,—eighteen miles?"