“I sha’n’t go. I’m sorry I said I would. It’s cowardly, but I don’t mean to go—there!”
The hot tears of vexation and misery stood in his eyes as he made this confession, and rose up prepared to resent his companion’s reproaches with angry words; but he was disarmed, for Tom whispered hastily:
“Oh, Dick, I am so glad! I wouldn’t show the white feather and play sneak, but I didn’t want to go. It seemed too bad to mother and father. But you mean it?”
“Yes, I mean it!” said Dick, with a load off his breast. “I felt that it would be like running away because we were afraid to face a charge.”
“Hooray!” cried Tom in a whisper. “I say, Dick, don’t think me a coward, but I am so glad! I say, shall I go back now?”
“No; stop a bit,” whispered Dick, with his heart beating, and a strange suspicion making its way into his breast. For in an incoherent vague manner he found himself thinking of Farmer Tallington stealing out of his house in the middle of the night. He had a boat, as most of the fen farmers had, for gunning, fishing, and
cutting reeds. What was he doing on the water at night? For it must have been he with a light.
Then a terrible suspicion flashed across him, and the vague ideas began to shape themselves and grow solid. Suppose it was Farmer Tallington who had been guilty of—
Dick made a strong effort at this point to master his wandering imagination, and forced himself to think only of what he really knew to be the fact, namely, that Farmer Tallington was out somewhere, and that the squire was out too.