“No,” said the man, drawing him back from the brink, and looking him full in the eyes, with the half-savage glare passing out of his own to give place to an air of profound melancholy. “No, I wouldn’t do you any harm, sir. You’re a brave lad.”
“No, I’m not,” said Nic, letting himself sink back on the sunny herbage, for he felt sick and giddy. “It was horrible: it made me turn faint. Why did you do that?”
He spoke now in indignant anger.
“Because I was a brute,” said the man hoarsely. “They’ve made me a brute. I thought I would try you and see what was in you. There, go back home and tell them,” he cried, with his voice growing intensely bitter; “and you can have the pleasure of seeing me flogged.”
“What!” cried Nic, forgetting his own feelings in seeing the way the man was moved. “You—flogged—for playing that foolish trick!”
“Yes; foolish trick, my lad. But there, now you’ve come home, keep away from me. You’ve a deal to learn yet.”
“Well, you own it was foolish,” said Nic, for want of something better to say.
“Yes, a piece of madness, my lad. You said you begged my pardon a bit ago. I beg yours now.”
“Of course. There, it’s all right,” cried Nic. “But don’t you think I should go and tell tales. My father would, of course, be put out,—but flog you! He doesn’t look the sort of man to flog his people, does he?”
The man looked at him curiously. Then, drawing back sharply, his manner changed, and he began to look sullen, as he said in a morose voice: