"That will be no easy matter."
"We will take the boy over to the court now, and then—"
Noddy did not hear any more, for the two gentlemen entered the house, and he heard their step on the stairs. But he did not want to know anything more. Squire Wriggs had distinctly said they would take him over to the court, and that was enough to satisfy him that his worst fears were to be realized. The talk about thirty thousand dollars, and the guardian, was as unintelligible to him as though it had been in ancient Greek, and he did not bestow a second thought upon it. The "boy like him," to whom thirty thousand dollars would be a great deal of money, meant some other person than himself. The court was Noddy's peculiar abomination; and when he heard the words, he clutched the sash of the window with convulsive energy.
Mr. Grant and Squire Wriggs passed into the house, and Noddy Newman passed out. To a gymnast of his wiry experience, the feat was not impossible, or even very difficult. Swinging out of the window, he placed his feet on the window-cap below, and then, stooping down, he got hold with his hands, and slipped down from his perch with about the same ease with which a well-trained monkey would have accomplished the descent.
He was on the solid earth now, and with the feeling that the court-house and a whole regiment of constables were behind him, he took to his heels. A stiff-kneed gardener, who had observed his exit from the house, attempted to follow him; but he might as well have chased a northwest gale. Noddy reached the Glen, and no sound of pursuers could be heard. The phantom court-house had been beaten in the race.
CHAPTER VI.
NODDY'S ENGAGEMENT.
When Noddy reached the Glen, he had time to stop and think; and the consequences of the sudden step he had taken came to his mind with tremendous force. He had fled from Miss Bertha, and all the comforts and luxuries which had surrounded him at Woodville. He was a vagabond again.
It was a great deal better to be a vagabond than it was to be an inmate of a prison, or even of a tinker's shop. He had committed no crime; the worst that could be said of him was, that he was a victim of circumstances. It was unfortunate for him that he had used those petulant words, that he wished the boat-house was burned down, for they had put the idea into Fanny's head. He did not mean to kindle the fire, but he believed that he had been the cause of it, and that it was hardly fair to let the young lady suffer for what he had virtually done.