On the morning after the Squire's interview with his bailiff, however, Hal evolved a scheme which relieved them of this clog.
One of the men had let loose a ferret in the granary, to hunt the rats, which of late had been committing great depredations in the henhouses. For some time the boys had been too excited to notice their brother's sudden disappearance. But presently, the hunt drifted upstairs into the loft overhead. This at once recalled Hal to mind, because he could not very well climb a ladder without assistance.
"Where can he have got to?" exclaimed Sigismund, who had been outside to look about for him.
Somehow Sigismund, being of a more unselfish disposition, was always the one to wait behind for Hal.
"Gone indoors, I expect," returned Will, already half-way up.
Hal had a way of "going indoors" when he found the game beyond him. "It's no fun when you ache," he would say; "and it doesn't make you a bit worth playing with." And he would be found afterwards, deep in a book—not always a story-book either.
Meanwhile, Hal, having slipped out through the stable-yard and gained the road, was on his way to the Manor Farm, meditating on the unaccustomed rôle which he had taken on himself.
About the same time, Dick Crozier, intending to hang about the farm, on the chance of catching Bill and hearing something of the hornets' nest, had chosen that direction for his morning's stroll. Recognising the wooden tap-tap of Hal's crutches on the gravel as he hurried down the hill, Dick determined first to renew acquaintance with the Squire's grandson; so he slackened pace, and the boys met at the lodge gate.
Hal at once nodded pleasantly; and Dick, returning the nod, joined him without further ceremony.
"You get along jolly fast, considering," remarked Dick pleasantly, as the conversation turned on walking. "That's hard work, though, I should say."