“Where are you?” came from about a hundred yards away. And as he shouted to guide the search party he soon saw through the dim light a crowded punt propelled by two polers, and that there was another behind.
The next minute the foremost punt was within reach, and Dick stepped from a clump of rushes on board.
“Got anything to eat?” cried Dick, obeying his dominant instinct, and his voice sounded wolfish and strange.
“To eat!—no, sir,” cried his father sternly. “What are you doing here?”
“I lost myself, father, and went to sleep—woke up in the darkness, and couldn’t stir. Morning, Hicky!”
“Wheer’s my poont?” said the wheelwright.
“Close round here somewhere,” said Dick. “Go on and we shall find it. But where was the fire?”
The squire drew a hissing breath between his teeth as if in pain, and yet as if in relief; for it seemed to him that once more he was suspecting wrongfully, and that if his son had been mixed up with the past night’s outrage he would never have spoken so frankly.
“The fire, boy!” he said hoarsely; “at the Toft. The place is nearly burned down.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Dick; and there was so much genuine pain and agony in his voice that the squire grasped his son’s hand.