“You knew I was by it,” I said.
“Yes; but I thought perhaps it weren’t yourn,” he howled.
“Now look here,” I said, “you give me what you took out of it.”
“I didn’t take nothing out of it,” he whined. “I was only going to, when that gent came along on the shay, and asked me where you was.”
“You’ve got my best shoes on,” I said. “Take them off.”
He pulled them off, having half spoiled them by cutting the fronts, to let his feet go in.
“Where’s that gentleman now?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he whined. “He said if I didn’t show him where you was, he’d hand me over to the police; and I cut off across the fields, when we was walking the pony up a hill.”
“You’re a nice blackguard,” I said, cooling down fast now, as the fear of Mr Blakeford came back. I was wondering, too, how to get rid of my conquest, when, just as I stooped to pick up the shoes, he shrank away, uttering a cowardly howl, as if I had aimed a blow at him; and, starting up, he ran back along the lane shoeless, and seemed making for the high road.
“He’ll tell Mr Blakeford,” I thought; and catching up the bundle, I hurried on in the opposite direction, till, finding the brook again cross the road, I hastily stooped down and washed my bleeding knuckles, before starting off once more, getting rid of the marks of the struggle a fast as I could, and looking back from time to time, in momentary expectation of seeing Mr Blakeford’s head above the hedge.