'And he's got my new boots on,' ejaculated Pupil Number 2. 'They'll punish him.'
'It's a great deal too bad,' said Lady Caergwent, flushing up. 'Cherry, what can I do? Indeed, it wasn't on purpose.'
'Don't you think he could be stopped, Felix!' entreated Cherry, tender over her boy. 'Is not there some short way to the garden?—Willie!'
'Impossible, Cherry,' said Will. 'No doubt he will go home instead of coming back here.' And to his neighbour—'Don't distress yourself. It is the first time I ever saw Bernard stirred out of the grand simplicity of his self-devotion.'
'Where's the Vicar?' broke in Lord Ernest, while Lady Caergwent looked far from consoled. 'You've not sent him after any water-weeds, have you?'
'No, a vicar never gets a clear holiday in his own precincts.' said Will. 'I've rigged him out to go to some cottagers up here—and if they know him for their shepherd, it's a pity.'
For besides being a shorter and more loosely-built man, the Oxford tutor, though not unclerical, had not the peculiar ecclesiastical look of the Vicar of Vale Leston.
'What have you done to Bernard?' said the voice of Clement himself, as he came in, certainly a good deal transformed. 'I met him galloping down the lane, and saying he should walk home, and you were not to wait for him.'
'You didn't turn him back? O Clement!'
'He hasn't quarrelled with any one?' said Clement, anxiously surveying the ranks; 'he wouldn't tell me.'