"Well, of all strange accusations, this is about the strangest!" uttered Cyril. "We have not been near your window; we are upstairs at our tea."
At this juncture, Mr. Dare came out. He had heard the altercation in the house. "What's this?" asked he. "Good evening, Markham."
Markham explained. "They crouched down under the hedge when they had done the mischief," he continued, "thinking, no doubt, to get away undetected. But, as it happened, Brooks the nurseryman was in his ground behind the opposite hedge, and he saw the whole. He says they were throwing at the bats. Now I should be sorry to get them punished, Mr. Dare; we have been boys ourselves; but if young gentlemen will throw stones, they must pay for any damage they do. I have requested your son to send a glazier round in the morning. I am sorry he should have denied the fact."
Mr. Dare turned to Cyril. "If you did it, why do you deny it?"
Cyril hesitated for the tenth part of a second. Which would be the best policy? To give in, or to hold out? He chose the latter. His word was as good as that confounded Brooks's, and he'd brave it out! "We didn't do it," he angrily said; "we have not been near the place this evening. Brooks must have mistaken others for us in the dusk."
"They did do it, Mr. Dare. There's no mistake about it. Brooks had been watching them, and he thinks it was the bigger one who threw that particular stone. If I had set a house on fire," Markham added to Cyril, "I'd rather confess the accident, than deny it by a lie. What sort of a man do you expect to make?"
"A better one than you!" insolently retorted Cyril.
"Wait an instant," said Mr. Dare. He proceeded to the school-room to inquire of George. That young gentleman had been an admiring hearer of the colloquy from a staircase-window. He tore back to the school-room on the approach of his father; hastily deciding that he must bear out Cyril in the denial. "Now, George," said Mr. Dare, sternly, "did you and Cyril do this, or did you not?"
"Of course we did not, papa," was the ready reply. "We have not been near Markham's. Brooks must be a fool."
Mr. Dare believed him. He was leaving the room when Miss Benyon interposed.