[CHAPTER XVIII.]
TO THE RESCUE.
DICK CROZIER was on the Squire's mind as well as upon Hal's.
Upon the stroke of noon, he left his study and started up the hill. "He'll be in by half-past twelve, or thereabouts," he calculated; "and I'll have a talk with him."
Now it happened that Dick's master, having a train to catch for town on important business, Dick had got out of school rather earlier than usual. Just as he turned the corner by the Manor Farm, he spied the Squire plodding up the hill with his gold-headed cane.
Dick halted instantly, for it occurred to him that precisely the same thing he had warned Bill of was about to happen to himself.
"I'm in for a good lecture," said he, "and if my father don't 'give it me' when he hears, my name ain't Dick, that's all."
So, after due reflection, Dick concluded that it would be most prudent policy to give the Squire the slip.
"I shan't go in till dinner-time," said Dick. And going back across the road, he struck into the pathway for that still forbidden ground, the riverbank.
Meanwhile the Squire, totally unconscious of having been spied out, was seated in the sunny little parlour which Dick's mother loved so well, making acquaintance with his tenant's wife, and explaining the nature of his errand.