“Shall we be transported?” he asked, with a quaver in his voice.
The magistrate took a hurried gulp from the tumbler before him.
“You’ve put me in a fix, my man. You’d no business to get round me to prevent me doing my duty.”
“I really didn’t mean to do that,” put in Dick.
“No—we wouldn’t do such a thing,” said Georgie.
“Well, never mind that. Whatever Tom White did to you, you’d no right to do what you did. You’ve put me in a fix, I say. Take my advice and write to your father, and tell him all about it, and get him to come down. If Tom White’s partners and the pawnbroker get their money, they may stop the case, and there’ll be an end of it. If they don’t, Tom must take his chance. Dear, dear, things have changed in Templeton since my day. Confound it, I wish the
Harriers would choose some other run! A nice fix I’m in, to be sure—young rascals!”
Late that evening a crowd assembled in the Quadrangle of Templeton. The hunt had been in three hours ago, and all the hounds but three had turned up and gone to their kennels. It was to welcome the remaining three that the crowd was assembled. They had already been signalled from the beach, and the faint hum in the High Street told that they had already got into their last run.