“And when we do find ’em d’yer think they’ll be such softs as to give it to us back again!” This was a startling question.
“I know ’em,” said Bob. “They’ll want to know where we got it from, and how we come by it, and all sorts o’ nonsense o’ that kind. Say we ain’t no right to it. I know what they’ll say.”
“But p’r’aps it’s floating about?”
“P’r’aps you’re floating about!” cried Bob, with a snarl. “Boat like that don’t go floating about without some one in it, and if it does some one gets hold of it, and says it’s his.”
This was a terrible check to their adventurous voyage, as unexpected as it was sudden, and Dexter looked dolefully up in his companion’s face.
“I know’d how it would be, and I was a stoopid to bring such a chap as you,” continued Bob, who seemed happiest when he was scolding. “You’ve lost the boat, and we shall have to go back.”
“Go back!” cried Dexter, with a look of horror, as he saw in imagination the stern countenance of the doctor, his tutor’s searching eyes, Helen’s look of reproach, and Sir James Danby waiting to ask him what had become of the boat, while Master Edgar seemed full of triumph at his downfall.
“Go back?” No he could not go back. He felt as if he would rather jump into the river.
“We shall both get a good leathering, and that won’t hurt so very much.”
A good leathering! If it had been only the thrashing, Dexter felt that he would have suffered that; but his stay at the doctor’s had brought forth other feelings that had been lying dormant, and now the thrashing seemed to him the slightest part of the punishment that he would have to face. No: he could not go back.