“I think that Chris is a bad boy, and that he has done it,” said Alvar. “But I do not care about the hay. What does that matter?”
“Why, the rick was worth forty pounds,” said Cherry.
“I do not care for forty pounds. I care that I shall be obeyed,” said Alvar.
A great deal more discussion followed, chiefly between Alvar and Jack; the latter at last relieving his mind of much of the good advice which he had long been burning to bestow. He showed Alvar his errors at length, and in the clearest language. Alvar took it very coolly, and without much more interest than if it had been an essay. He was not, as they would have expected, enraged at the burnt rick; indeed Cheriton could not help fancying that he regarded it as a justification of his violence towards Chris. As usual, it was the sense of Cheriton’s opposing view rather than the thing itself that annoyed him.
“Don’t worry yourself, Cherry,” said Jack, as he wished him good-night. “I’ll go the first thing in the morning and find out the rights of it.”
Accordingly, before either of his brothers appeared, Jack started off through wind and rain, and investigated the story of the burnt rick.
He returned in high feather, and found them still at breakfast; for Alvar by no means held his father’s opinion as to the merits of early rising.
“Well,” said Jack, “it’s clear that Chris had nothing to do with it. He left home at half-past four, went straight to old Bill’s cottage, where Alice Fisher gave him some tea, and where no doubt they indulged in a good crack, left them at half-past five, and came straight up here with the note for Alvar, when you saw him.”
“Yes,” said Cherry, “I looked at the clock when I came over to the fire.”
“Well, then, John Kitson saw the rick on fire exactly at half-past five, he heard the church clock strike; so if you and Alvar go over to Hazelby to-morrow, and prove that Chris came here on his way from old Bill’s at that time, you can set it all to rights in a moment. And if that idiot Fletcher had sent for you—for Alvar—last night, poor Chris would never have been suspected.”