Herty was ready the next morning betimes. Long before eleven had struck he was fidgeting about, asking every one half-a-dozen times in a minute what o’clock it was, so that it was a relief to everybody when the dog-cart drew up to the door and Herty was safely hoisted up to his seat beside his friend.
“I was so afraid it would rain or something, and that perhaps you wouldn’t come,” said the little boy.
“I would have come all the same if it had rained,” said Archie. “I could have wrapped you up in a mackintosh, and I daresay we’d have found something to amuse you at Alderwood.”
“These holidays are very dull,” said Herty with a sigh. “I have got no rabbits, nor nothing like I had at Pinnerton. I’d almost rather go back to France.”
“There’s no chance of that?” said Mr Dunstan quickly.
“Oh no,” said Herty. “Blanchie says we must stay here for—always, I suppose. Anyway, till I’m a man; and then I mean to make money for them. You know we’ve got no money now, at least scarcely any except what they make with having a shop. It’s rather horrid, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” agreed Archie, somewhat incautiously; “I think it’s exceedingly horrid. And I can quite understand that you feel in a great hurry to be a man, so as to be able to help them.”
“It’ll take a good while, though,” said Herty prudently, and then he began talking about the horse, extracting a promise from Archie that he would let him hold the reins when they got to a perfectly quiet part of the road.
But with some skill Mr Dunstan managed to bring him back to the subject they had been discussing.
“Do you think your sister minds much?” he asked, when Herty had been retailing some of his own grievances.