The boy gave another sniff. “Tom,” he divulged reluctantly. “I want to go to London. And I would have gone, too, only that I asked those men the way to Baldock, and they said they would put me on the road, and then—and then—” He ground his teeth audibly, and said in a kind of growl: “I suppose I was a regular green one, but how was I to tell—?”
“No, indeed, it is the kind of thing that might happen to anyone,” the Duke agreed, propelling him gently towards the gig. “Up you get!”
“And I landed one of them a couple of wisty castors!” Tom told him, allowing himself to be helped into the gig. “Only they had cudgels, and that is how it came about. And they took my five pounds, and my watch, which Pa gave me, and when I came to myself they were gone. I don’t care for having my canister milled, but it is too bad to have taken all my money, and if I could catch them Pa would have them transported!”
The Duke, having put him safely into his seat, went to the cob’s head, and began to turn the gig in the narrow space available for the manoeuvre. He was not at all inclined to take his youthful protégé to an inn of such apparent ill-fame as the Bird in Hand, even though it seemed highly probable that Tom might there realize his wish of catching his assailants; and he decided that his business with Mr. Liversedge would have to be postponed until the next day. Having turned the gig, he mounted on to the box seat, gathered, up the reins, and gave the cob the office to trot homewards. Tom sat slumped on the seat beside him, sunk in depression, sniffing at intervals, and wiping his nose with a grubby handkerchief. After an interval, he said with would-be civility: “I don’t know why you should put yourself to this trouble, sir. I am sure you need not. I daresay I shall do very well when my head stops aching.”
“Oh, you will be as right as a trivet!” Gilly said. “Had you a bag with you, and did the thieves steal that as well?”
Tom fidgeted rather uncomfortably. “No. That is—Well, the thing is I couldn’t bring my portmanteau, sir, because—Well, I couldn’t bring it! But then, you know, I had my money, and I thought I could buy anything I might need.”
The Duke, feeling that he had much in common with his young friend, nodded understandingly, and said that it did not signify. “I expect one of my nightshirts will not fit you so very ill. How old are you?”
“Fifteen,” replied Tom, a hint of challenge in his voice.
“You are very big! I had thought you older.”
“Well, I do think anyone might suppose me to be seventeen at least, don’t you?” Tom said, responding to that gratifying remark, and speaking in a far less belligerent tone. “And I am very well able to take care of myself—in general. But if sneaks set upon one two to one there is no doing anything! And I shall never have such a chance again, because they will watch me so close—Oh, it is too bad, sir! I wish I was dead! They would have been sorry then! At least, Pa would, but I daresay Mr. Snape wouldn’t have cared a button, for he’s the greatest beast in nature, and I hate him!”