'By Jove! That was a fine thing to do,' exclaimed the young fellow, whom David took to be about twenty years of age. 'A real plucky thing. How on earth did you manage to clamber on to the carriage when it was going at such a pace, while you were on a bike? But let me thank you a thousand times for your action. You have undoubtedly saved mother's life.'
Very cordially did he shake David's hand, and thereafter did his utmost to put our hero at his ease and make him feel at home. Then, after lunch, he pressed him to stay a day or so, for the two young fellows took instantly to one another.
'Come,' he said, 'you've nothing in particular to do. Off for a bicycle tour I suppose? Stay here a day or two and have a little fishing with me.'
'Can't, though many thanks all the same,' answered David, wishing that he could remain. 'I'm not on a bicycle tour. I'm going to London to find work. I've some important business to do there.'
In a little while his new friends became aware of the fact that our hero was launching himself on the world, and though he did not tell them his reasons for leaving home, they realised that he was justified.
'If you cannot stay, you can at least remember the address of this house,' said Mrs. Cartwell. 'We shall be glad to receive a visit from you at any time, and I shall expect you to write. And now we will no longer detain you.'
They sent him away with further words of thanks, while Dick Cartwell accompanied him some five miles on the journey.
'Mind,' he said, as they gripped hands for the last time, 'we shall expect to see you again, and hope you will write. I feel that we haven't half thanked you.'
David waved the words aside, and straddled his bicycle. 'I don't want thanks,' he said abruptly. 'But I'd like to come down. I'll write when I've found work and am getting on a little. For the present I have no time and no right to laze and enjoy myself.'
He went off down the road waving to Dick, never dreaming that the two of them would come together again under strange circumstances. Pedalling hard, he made up for lost time, and just as the shades of evening were falling, found his way into the great city of London.