[CHAPTER XIX.]
REVENGE.
ALL this while the Squire had been waiting for Dick in vain. At length, his usual luncheon-time being nearly half an hour past, he gave up, and set off down the hill, still thinking that he might meet him by the way; but desiring Mrs. Crozier, if such should not prove the case, to send Dick up to the Manor House that afternoon.
This, however, Mrs. Crozier had no chance of doing. Hurrying up the fields from the riverbank, it had occurred to Dick that it would be more prudent to dry his clothes before going home; so, taking a short cut across the grass to the back of the Manor Farm, he made his way to a haystack he knew of, which had been partly cut away on the sunny side. Here, stripping off his garments, and spreading them out in the sun, he covered himself up with the loose, warm hay, to wait and think over the story by which he would account for his absence from dinner, and his battered face.
Meanwhile Hal, hearing the church clock strike half-past one, had left Maggie to take Blazer home, and had struck across the fields and past the farm. Hot and flushed with hurrying, he arrived at the lodge gate just as the Squire came in sight.
Hal pulled up to wait for him, glad of breathing space.
The Squire was walking briskly. "We shall deserve a scolding for keeping lunch waiting," said he as he came up. "How come you to be late too?—And what have you done with the other boys? By the by, have you seen anything of Dick Crozier?"
"That's what made me late," answered Hal, guessing that his grandfather must have met Dick in his deplorable condition. "He had enough of his ducking, I should think."
The Squire stared. "Enough of what?"
"But you met him?" said Hal.