“Well,” said Henry resignedly, “go ahead, and trick me out as you please.” Then, a woe-begone look overspreading his face, he added: “There is no one here to know me, so that it makes no difference how I am trussed up.”
Ah! his heart was with the loved ones at home, and he cared little what these boys did with him.
But “tricked out” and “trussed up!” Those words took well with the simple village boys; they held their breath for admiration.
Then the cleanest handkerchief (which was Henry’s own) that could be found, was bound about his head, so as to flap over his mouth unpleasantly, and wanton in the sultry July breeze.
Needless precaution, for nothing was seen of Marmaduke.
Weary as Henry must have been after his long journey, he was hurried away to one of the boys’ retreats, in a retired quarter of Mr Lawrence’s garden. At first the boys were quite reserved, for Henry had been represented to them as a very extraordinary personage; but in the course of half an hour they became as well acquainted with him as if they had known him from the days of the plesiosaurus dolichodeirus.
For a full hour they talked almost at random; narrating their late adventures with Bob, touching gingerly upon Will’s last lamentable blunder, and giving a minute, but bewildering and disjointed, account of their darling scheme.
Then, after Henry had received confused notions of various matters, the party dispersed; and the poor boy was allowed to see his aunt and uncle, wash, partake of some food, and snatch a wink of sleep.
They had appointed to meet early in the afternoon, to discuss their plot in all its bearings, and to have Henry compose the vexatious letter; but he and Will spent a short but very pleasant time in each other’s company, and when the hour came for them to repair to the rendezvous, the former had grasped the boys’ idea, and mapped out his own course.
To say that Henry was delighted with this plot, would be to do him gross injustice—in fact, to speak out boldly, since yesterday the writer has racked his brains in a vain endeavor to hit upon some single adjective that would adequately describe the boy’s ecstasy.