"Poor child!" cried James, as he drew back from William, "don't you know that we were only in play? Did you never see two boys playing before?"
"Not in that way," replied Henry.
"That is because you have no brother," answered James. "It is a sad thing for a boy not to have a brother."
They all then left the barn, and William went to wash his nose at the pump.
Whilst he was doing this, James turned over an empty trough which lay in the shade of one of the buildings in the fold-yard, and he and Henry sat down upon it; William soon came down to them. He had washed away the blood, and he looked so sulky, that anyone might have seen that he would have opened out the quarrel again with James
had not Henry Fairchild been present; for, though he did not care for the little boy, yet he did not wish that he should give him a bad name to his father.
Henry Fairchild was learning the best lesson he had ever had in his life amongst the unruly children of Mr. Burke; but this lesson was not to be learned only by his ears and eyes; it would not have been enough for him to have seen Tom soused in the mire, or William with his bloody nose; his very bones were to suffer in the acquirement of it, and he was to get such a fright as he had never known before.
But before the second part of his adventures that morning is related, it will be as well to say, in this place, that Mr. Fairchild was taken first by Mr. Burke to the poor widow's cottage, where he found her almost crippled with rheumatism. She had parted with much of her furniture and clothes to feed the poor children, but was gentle and did not complain.
From the cottage Mr. Burke drove Mr. Fairchild to the park, and there Mr. Fairchild had an opportunity of speaking of the poor grandmother and the little children to Mr. and Mrs. Darwell.
Mr. Darwell said that if the cottage required repair, Mr. Burke must look after it, and then speak to him, as the affair was not his, as he was only Sir Charles Noble's tenant.