“No,” said Tom, with his mouth full of pork-pie; “of course he could not. Dick isn’t a coward!”
“I humbly apologise, Mrs Winthorpe,” said Marston, smiling, “and you must forgive me. A man who has been shot at has his temper spoiled.”
“Say no more, Marston, my lad,” said the squire warmly; “we all forgive you, and—breakfast waits.”
The subject was hurriedly changed, Dick being after all able to make a good meal, during which he thought of the past, and of how glad he was to be friends with Tom Tallington again; and then, as he had his second help of pie to Tom’s third, it seemed to him that the same person must be guilty of all these outrages, and if so it could not by any possibility be Farmer Tallington, for he never skated, and even if he could, he weighed at least sixteen stone, and the ice had broken under the weight of Tom’s seven or eight.
“We shall find him yet, Marston; never fear,” said the squire; “and when we do—well, I shall be sorry for the man.”
“Why?” said Mrs Winthorpe.
“Because,” said the squire gravely, “I have been so near death myself that—there, this is not a pleasant subject to talk about. We will wait.”