“No odds! Get them in directly, and put them to dry here.”
So Harry Winburn went off to the stable to fetch his clothes.
“He's a fine fellow,” said East, getting up and coming to the fire; “I've taken quite a fancy to him, but he doesn't fancy enlisting.”
“Poor fellow! he has to leave his sweetheart. It's a sad business, but it's the best thing for him, and you'll see he'll go.”
Tom was right. Poor Harry came in and dried his clothes, and got his supper; and while he was eating it, and all along the road afterwards, till they reached the station at about eleven o'clock, pleaded in his plain way with Tom against leaving his own country side. And East listened silently, and liked him better and better.
Tom argued with him gently, and turned the matter round on all sides, putting the most hopeful face upon it; and, in the end, talked first himself and then Harry into the belief that it was the best thing that could have happened to him, and more likely than any other course of action to bring everything right between him and all the folk at Englebourn.
So they got into the train at Steventon in pretty good heart, with his fare paid, and half-a-sovereign in his pocket, more and more impressed in his mind with what a wonderful thing it was to be “a schollard.”
The two friends rode back to Oxford at a good pace. They had both of them quite enough to think about, and were not in the humour for talk, had place and time served, so that scarce a word passed between them till they had left their horses at the livery stables, and were walking through the silent streets, a few minutes before midnight. Then East broke silence.
“I can't make out how you do it. I'd give half-a-year's pay to get the way of it.”
“The way of what? What an you talking about?”