CHAPTER XVII.

LOOSE AGAIN.

ON reaching the stile by the Manor Farm, the Squire went on to the cottages with Bill, leaving Hal to return home alone, and tell his mother all that had happened. They had scarcely parted, when Dick, surrounded by a number of his schoolfellows, overtook him.

Dick threw Hal a nod, proud to show off his grand acquaintance; but Hal beckoned him.

"Bill's come home," said he, as Dick ran forward from the group.

"Hooray!" shouted the other boys, who, of course, had seen the whole story in the local newspaper. "Hooray!" And half-a-dozen caps flew in the air.

But Hal's business was with Dick.

"I'm disappointed in you, Dick," said he.

"How's that?" returned Dick in a tone of bravado, guessing what Hal meant.

"I didn't think you were the sort of boy to encourage other boys in stealing eggs for you to suck," said Hal. "It seems to me, I'd rather steal myself than get another boy to do it for me. You see, it's very mean to put your dirty work upon another fellow, isn't it?"

"I paid him fair," said Dick.

Hal considered a minute. This line of argument was rather difficult to answer, and yet Hal's sense of right and wrong told him it was false.

"You'd no right to pay him for dishonesty," said he; "so no payment could be fair."

"I don't know so much about that," returned Dick stoutly. "If a fellow's fool enough to sell his soul for sixpence, that's his own look out. It's always fair to pay a fellow what he'll take."

"That's not the way to look at it at all," said Hal. "A fellow's soul is worth a great deal more than any one can pay, and if he loses it, he's done for outright. And whoever gets it from him, is his murderer for ever," added Hal quite solemnly. "The Bible tells you that."

"Chapter the one hundredth, verse the millionth!" sang out Dick in a mocking tone.

"Well, I must be getting home," said Hal. "I'm sorry, for I liked you at the first. And I thought that when I came to be Squire—if ever I do—you would be one of my best tenants, and help me to make the Manor prosperous. You see, a Squire wouldn't be able to do much good if all his tenants were like that, and didn't care a pin about each other's souls."

Will and Sigismund would have been rather envious of Hal's good fortune in the enjoyment of such an adventure as the finding of a runaway by Farmer Bluff's dog Blazer, had not their attention been rather taken up just then with the half-term holiday, which some cousins were to spend with them. These cousins were London boys, and were coming down that same evening, to make the most of a whole day at the Manor House. When Hal got in, his brothers were just getting up into the waggonette to fetch them from the station, and there was plenty else to talk about when they came in.

The first thing after breakfast next morning, the six boys all turned out, bent upon fun and frolic.

Dick was on his way down the hill with his books as they came out shouting and laughing on to the terrace, and he sprang up to the palings to see what was going on.

But, unfortunately for Dick, it was not "half-term" at his school; so with a feeling of envy, he leapt back to the pathway, and continued his road.

"Hare and hounds!" he heard them cry, as they came pelting down the drive.

Will was with the foremost ones, but Sigismund, always more considerate for his brother, lagged behind, as Hal came hurrying after on his crutches.

"You can't play, Hal, if we have hare and hounds," he was saying.

"Oh! Never mind," returned Hal. "I can't play at anything, you see."

"The woods will be the place," cried Will, in front, "Say, Sidge; the woods—eh?"

"But Hal—" began Sigismund.

"The woods, by all means," echoed Hal, however, interrupting him. "It's no use, Sidge, don't you see," added he, in a lower tone to Sigismund. "If you'd got my legs, you wouldn't want everybody to stop playing on your account."

A boy of Hal's brave disposition was sure to find it less hard to bear his affliction quietly than to feel himself a constant mar-joy to the others.

"I'll go as far as the wood with you," continued he; "and then I'll go inside and rest. I told Farmer Bluff the boys were coming, but I said that I expected I should be able to go and see him all the same."

So at the gate of the wood they parted; and whilst Will, as swiftest runner, was being chosen "hare," Hal was climbing up the narrow stair to Farmer Bluff's room.

"I've come, you see," said he cheerily, as he swung himself towards the bed.

Farmer Bluff's face brightened.

"I was thinking of ye," answered he.

"It's rather early, I'm afraid," continued Hal; "but I came down with the others as far as this. They've all gone into the wood for hare and hounds, and I can't manage that, you know. I hope you don't mind."

Farmer Bluff, on the contrary, expressed himself heartily delighted to see "the young Squire."

"You and Maggie," said he, "I don't know what I should do without the two of you—though I suppose I oughtn't to mention you in one breath."

Hal, with a puzzled expression, said that he did not see why. He generally managed to see to the bottom of things pretty quickly, and to catch people's meaning when it was not quite on the surface. But this notion perplexed him not a little. Inequality of rank did not enter much into Hal's ideas.

"She sings to you, doesn't she?" observed he presently, after having thought all round the question in vain.

"And you talk," rejoined Farmer Bluff. "Maggie doesn't talk; she chatters, if she does anything in that line."

"I like to talk," answered Hal simply; "as much as other boys like to run and jump, I fancy; perhaps it is because I can't run and jump."

"Perhaps it is," said Farmer Bluff. He was thinking that it seemed as if God had given the boy a better power in exchange for the one He had withheld. "A ready tongue 'll be useful to you when you come to the Manor," added he.

"Only I shan't be able to follow the hounds," said Hal regretfully.

"Never you grieve for that," returned Farmer Bluff. "You'll have the hearts of your tenantry; that I'll certify."

"Farmer Bluff," said Hal suddenly, "I've been thinking a good deal about Dick Crozier since yesterday. I expect he'll be one of my tenants by and by, you know, and I'm afraid he won't be a very good one."

"About the average run, perhaps," said Farmer Bluff. "Some better, and some worse."

"But don't you see," said Hal, "he's got no principle. He doesn't think it matters the least bit in the world if a boy chooses to sell his soul for sixpence—like Bill, when he thieved to get the goose egg for him."

Farmer Bluff was silent. He knew so well how many men there were among the tenantry—how many who owned manors, too—with little or no principle.

It was on his conscience, too, how he himself had sold his soul time and again for drink, for pleasure, or for gain.

"There 'll be some things you'll have to take as you find 'em," said he presently.

"I should like to alter that,"' said Hal. "There must be a remedy."

"No one has ever found it yet," said Farmer Bluff.

"Perhaps they haven't looked in the right place," said Hal. "I expect it's in the Bible, if it's anywhere."

"Maybe 'tis," said Farmer Bluff; and then he was silent a good while again. "I don't know much, about the Bible," he continued presently. "I didn't use to read it when I could, and I can't hold a feather now, much less a book."

So it came about, that Hal proposed to read it for him. And when Maggie came upstairs, he was sitting by her uncle's bedside, with the Bible on his knee. But the information Maggie brought put a stop to reading rather suddenly.

"Uncle Bluff!" cried she. "Blazer's loose again. I don't know where he is."

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