'Well,' he said, 'I was amazed to see you. Why, you are six miles from Dundry. Come along home with me, and—'
'No, no; I must get back. If you will wait I will tell you everything—and, Jack, I want to go to Bristol, to Madam Lambert's. That will be a help. I am no use at the farm, Aunt Dolly is always telling me so; and now, now they will have a hard fight to get through at all. Grandfather has got to sell up all the stock to pay a debt.'
'Nonsense, get along, I don't believe it,' Jack said. 'What do you mean?'
'What I say.'
And then Bryda poured the whole story into Jack's sympathetic ears, which he received with sundry ejaculations, which were anything but complimentary to Squire Bayfield.
But Jack, however sympathetic, had only one thing to advise.
'Don't pay the money to the young scoundrel, don't you do it, and go to Bristol and get out of all the bother.'
'It is not that I want to get out of the bother, Jack,' Bryda said. 'How can you think so? I want to help by going away. Why, yesterday, I wanted to go for my own pleasure, now I must go to try and help. Perhaps Madam Lambert will give me wages in time, then I can be a real help, and send Bet some money, and get comforts for poor grandfather.'
'You must get comforts for yourself first,' Jack said.
He was so pleased that his favourite scheme of getting Bryda to Bristol was to be carried out that he forgot everything else.