Miss Sharman went out to meet him before the little trio knew he was there, and his hearty "Good morning, ma'am! I've come for news of that young scapegrace, my grandson, John Brown," filled the room.
Whereat Mr. Bruce turned round, and he and the captain faced each other, and Cyril, in great fear, looked up to see if Arthur Smedley, the dread bully, had heard how the great captain of Dene Hall had absolutely, and in the hearing of the whole school acknowledged John Brown to be his grandson, and had not so much as glanced at Cyril, who stood there quite close to him.
It was the first time for more than seventeen years that Captain Carew and Mr. Bruce had been so close together, despite the fact that the fences of their respective properties were within sight of each other.
To-day Captain Carew grew a deep dark-red from his neck to the top of his forehead, and Mr. Bruce went quite white and held his head very high.
And Mr. Sharman drew back nervously, for he, like most other people, knew all about the relationship of these two men to each other, and about their deadly feud.
But the captain strode down the room, just as though he owned Mr. and Miss Sharman and every boy in the school, and he raised his voice somewhat as he repeated his statement about his grandson, "John Brown."
"And if you'll kindly excuse Cyril, I'll take him with me," said Mr. Bruce quietly, continuing his sentence, just as if no interruption had occurred at all.
In the playground Cyril received his commands, glad indeed to have them to execute instead of the arithmetic lesson and play-hour which the ordinary happenings of life would have brought about.
"Go into the bush," said his father, "and search there for her. Look everywhere where you are accustomed to play. She may have fallen down somewhere and hurt herself."
"Yes, father," said the boy obediently. "How'd it be to see if she's fallen in the creek?"