I think he was afraid of his pewter spoons. He kept the little fellow nearly half an hour, and he lent him an old bottomless sack to wrap about his shoulders, and charged him to bring it back in the morning. I think the man thought he might be a thief. He was a kind man—there was a balancing of great pity and suspicion.
The boy returned the sack with many thanks, in the first faint twilight of morning, and set forth again for Hatherton. It was, the fellow who directed him said, still five miles on.
At about a mile from Hatherton, cold and wet, and fearing to be too early at the George Inn, the rendezvous agreed on, the tired little fellow crept in, cold and wet, to a road-side pot-house.
At the fire of the ale-house three fellows were drinking beer. Says one who had now and then had his eye on the boy—
“That boy there has run away from school.”
I cannot describe the terror with which the little fellow heard those words. The other two looked at him. One was a fat fellow in breeches and top boots, and a red cloth waistcoat, and a ruddy good-humoured face; and after a look they returned to their talk; and in a little while the lean man, who seemed to find it hard to take his eyes off him, said, “That’s a runaway, that chap; we ought to tell the police and send him back to school.”
“Well, that’s no business of ours; can’t you let him be?” said the red waistcoat.
“Come here,” said the lean man, beckoning him over with his hard eye on him.
He rose and slowly approached under that dreadful command.
I can’t say that there was anything malevolent in that man’s face. Somewhat sharp and stern, with a lean inflexibility of duty. To the boy at this moment no face could have been imagined more terrific; his only hope was in his fat companion. He turned, I am sure, an imploring look upon him.