“Yes,” said Hugh.
“Are you in the habit of saying the multiplication-table when you travel?” said the other. “If so, we shall be happy to hear it.”
“Exceedingly happy,” observed the first.
“I never say it when I can help it,” said Hugh; “and I see no occasion now.”
The men laughed, and then asked him if he was going far.
“To Crofton. I am going to be a Crofton boy,” said Hugh.
“A what? Where is he going?” his companions asked one another over his head. They were no wiser when Hugh repeated what he had said; nor could the coachman enlighten them. He only knew that he was to put the boy down at Shaw’s, the great miller’s, near thirty miles along the road.
“Eight-and-twenty,” said Hugh, in correction; “and Crofton is two miles from my uncle’s.”
“Eight-and-twenty. The father’s joke lies there,” observed the right-hand man.
“No, it does not,” said Hugh. He thought he was among a set of very odd people,—none of them knowing what a Crofton boy was. A passenger who sat beside the coachman only smiled when he was appealed to; so it might be concluded that he was ignorant too; and the right and left-hand men seemed so anxious for information, that Hugh told them all he knew;—about the orchard and the avenue, and the pond on the heath, and the playground; and Mrs Watson, and the usher, and Phil, and Joe Cape, and Tony Nelson, and several others of the boys.