“No,” said Mr Raydon, firmly. “Go back to this Mr Barker, and say I’ll be with him directly.”
“Yes, sir,” said Grey; and he went out with all the quiet precision of a soldier.
“Bad news—bad news indeed,” said Mr Raydon, half aloud. “More trouble to lay upon your shoulders, Mayne Gordon. All your fault.”
I felt a chill run through me, and I believe a cold hard look must have come into my face.
“Well, we must make the best of it. Of course you two lads must stop here.”
“If you wish it, sir,” I said, “we will go directly.”
“I do not wish it, boy,” he replied sternly. “Do you wish to leave those who have been your friends in the lurch now you have dragged all this trouble to their door?”
“No, sir,” I said, as I set my teeth hard, determined to be cool, in spite of the injustice with which I felt that I was being treated.
“No, of course not. You have some stubborn pluck in you—both of you.”
Esau growled in a very low tone, and made his mother look at him in a startled way, as if she had suddenly awakened to the fact that her son possessed the nature of a bear’s cub.