“What caused it?”
“We fought to settle that question, sir, and it’s finished now.”
The vicar laughed.
“Which means you will not tell me. Well, I am no disbeliever in a manly display of fisticuffs. It breaks no bones and saves many a boy from the growth of worse qualities. I suppose you are going to the fair this afternoon?”
“No, sir. I’m not.”
“Would you mind telling me how you will pass the time between now and supper?”
“I am taking a message from my mother to Mrs. Saumarez, and then I’ll go straight to the Black Plantation”—a dense clump of firs situate at the head of the ghylls, or small valleys, leading from the cultivated land up to the moor.
“Dear me! And what will you do there?”
The boy smiled, somewhat sheepishly.
“I have a nest in a tree there, sir, where I often sit and read.”