"Ha! ha!" came the parson's rolling laugh. "'Pon my life, he's an apt pupil, Squire. The young dog! Ha! ha!"
"Explain this—this—" began the Squire angrily.
"This booby-trap, Squire," cried Mr. Carlyon. "'Tis I am the booby. I taught Dick, in a reckless burst of confidence, how we young rantipoles at Oxford used to deal with each other—and our tutors too, I'm bound to say. I wish I hadn't. But, you young rascal, I told you that we used flour: what is this horrible stuff?"
"Only a solution of indigo, sir; it won't do you any harm," replied poor Dick.
"Won't do me any harm? Only make me black and blue, eh? Ha! ha! I'm glad 'tis no worse. But 'tis a thousand pities those ruffians escaped the shower. Well, well, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, we're told, and——bless me, Squire, it takes me back forty years, when we had rigged up a trap for a freshman, and it toppled on the reverend head of the dean himself. Ha! ha!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the Squire, his vexation giving way to his sense of humour.
"Ho! ho!" roared Sam. "Drown me if it bean't the——"
"Shut up!" growled Dick. "Why must you laugh at the Vicar in that idiotic way?"
"'Cos he laughs at hisself," said Sam, highly aggrieved. "I wouldn' laugh at him with his nightgown on in church, not I; but when he be just like a simple common man, daze me if I can keep it in."
The two elders were now climbing the path. Dick stayed to retie the thread, though he did not expect that the marauders, after the alarm they had had, would make a second attempt that night. Having closed the door, he accompanied Sam up the cliff, greatly relieved when he heard, far above, the Vicar's hearty laugh, as he related to the Squire sundry other pranks and escapades of his younger days.