"Can you tell me where I am?" asked he.
"By the gate of the wood," answered Will, pointing past the cottages to the red-painted gate.
"Is this beyond the common?" asked the boy.
"Most certainly," was Will's reply.
"Then I'm where I've no business," rejoined the boy, who was none other than Dick Crozier. On leaving his new acquaintance, Bill the Kicker, he had wandered on by the right-hand road, until his way had met that of the Squire and his grandsons by the cottages.
Apart from Hal, Dick did not recognise them as the Manor House boys. Hal no sooner appeared in the doorway, however, than their identity flashed upon him. The next minute, the Squire himself emerged, tapping the ground briskly with his cane as he walked, as an indication that time was short and they must get forward without delay.
Perceiving Will in conversation with a strange boy, he stopped short; whereupon Will explain that Dick had lost his way.
The Squire inquired where he came from, but this Will had not yet asked; so the Squire turned to Dick himself.
"Your name, my boy?" asked he.
Dick had no sooner recognised Hal than it flashed upon him that the grand old gentleman with the gold-headed cane was none other than the Squire himself; and although not more troubled with bashfulness than most boys of his age, he was just a trifle flustered at the discovery. Nevertheless, he answered straightforwardly enough,—