“I’ve come to ’tend shop while Rod’s gone. I’d rather, a hundred times, any day, than stand and set type.”
“You stay here, then,” said Mrs. Nelson, “while I go and get a luncheon-tin filled for them to take along. They mustn’t catch Jim!”
It was hardly any time at all before all was ready, but the good-byes were said in a hurry, for Rodney remarked to Jim:
“We can do it, if we’re off before any of ’em see us go. We can catch a train and then we’re all right.”
They had evidently talked it all over before hand, because it was likely to happen, and so they were not altogether taken by surprise when it came.
It was not very late in that afternoon when a pair of young fellows were walking along a country road and one of them turned to the other, saying:
“This road takes us right around the village, Rodney. I guess we won’t meet anybody but we can cut across a field if we do.”
“We can cut before they know who it is,” said Rodney, but he felt a great deal more nervousness than Jim was showing, and he looked at him with open admiration.
“I say, Rodney,” remarked Jim, half a mile further on, “this isn’t night, it’s daytime, but it kind o’ feels as if the House of Refuge dormitory was only a little way behind me——”
“Hope it isn’t catching up,” said Rodney.