“Yes, and I saw him there,” said Manners. “My word, how he kept the pumpers up to the mark! The water never failed once. Why, you got quite a bargain in the old engine, Mr Willows, and that fellow did it up splendidly.”
“And worked gloriously,” cried Will. “I think, father, he felt ashamed of all he had said, and wanted to put matters right.”
“I hope so,” said Mr Willows; “at any rate I do for my miserable suspicions when the fire broke out.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said the Vicar. “It looked horribly black after his threatenings about revenge. But there, that’s all past, and thank Heaven you can congratulate yourself upon the good that has arisen out of to-night’s dark work.”
“Dark!” said Manners, wiping his black face. “I think we had too much light.”
“Not enough to show how that fire broke out,” said Mr Willows, gravely. “I cannot understand how it was caused.”
“Couldn’t be a spark left by one of the flashes of lightning in the storms we have had lately, could it?” said Josh, innocently.
“No,” said Will, mockingly; “but it might have been a star tumbled down.”
“No, it couldn’t!” cried Josh, angrily. “Such stuff! It must have been started somehow.”
“Yes, my boy,” said the Vicar, smiling; “but it is a mystery for the present.”