The Squire beckoned, and they set forward at a run, giving the stout old Velveteens a good view of their soles, and leaving him to follow at his sober pleasure. But Hal had already seized his opportunity.
"Grandfather," said he, moving nearer.
The old man faced about.
"Grandfather, I was wondering if I could make Farmer Bluff see how silly it is to keep on having gout?"
"To keep on drinking beer?—Hardly," quoth the Squire, "since his doctor fails. People usually believe their medical man, if anybody, when they are in pain."
"And I mean," added Hal, anxious to gain his point before the others came up, "if he left off having gout, should you still be obliged to turn him out of the Manor Farm?"
"Why, no," answered the Squire; "not if he showed himself capable of doing his duty as bailiff of the estate. But the fact is, I can't be Squire and bailiff too at my age; and if I could, I shouldn't long be able to, because—things don't go on for ever and a day, Hal."
Just then the other two boys cleared the ditch, and bounded up, with a ready apology for having kept their grandfather waiting; then, passing in at the back door, they all went through to the road again.
On reaching the front door, the Squire suddenly remembered something he had meant to say, and stepped back again. Hal waited with him, but Will and Sigismund ran straight out.
In the middle of the road a boy was standing, looking this way and that, as if undecided in which direction to go. Seeing two lads his own age, he at once advanced.