PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.

The squire was very quiet over the evening meal, but he looked across at d.i.c.k very sternly two or three times, and the lad did not meet his eye.

For certain plans which he had been concerting with Tom wore so strange an aspect in his eyes that he felt quite guilty, and the old frank light in his face seemed to have died out as he bent down over his supper, and listened to his father's answers to his mother about the proceedings of the past day.

Bed-time at last, and for the first time since he had returned d.i.c.k was alone with his mother, the squire having gone to take his customary look round the house.

"Good-night, mother!" said d.i.c.k in a low sombre manner, very different to his usual way.

Mrs Winthorpe did not answer for a moment or two, but gazed full at her son.

"And so the magistrate thought you guilty, d.i.c.k?" she said.

"Yes, mother," he flashed out, "and--"

"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs Winthorpe, flinging her arms about his neck.

"That's my boy who spoke out then. d.i.c.k, if you had spoken out like that to your father and everyone they would not have suspected you for a moment. There, good-night! It will all come right at last."

d.i.c.k said "good-night" to his father, who gave him a short nod, and then the lad went slowly up to his room, to sit on the edge of the bed and think of the possibility of building a hut out there in the island they had found in the fen, and then of how it would be if he and Tom did so, and went there to live; and when he had debated it well, he asked himself what would be the use, and confessed that it would be all nonsense, and that he had been thinking like a child.

"No," he said; "I'm no baby now. All this has made a man of me, and Tom Tallington is right; we must go and begin life somewhere else--where the world will not be so hard."

"He will not be here for an hour yet," he thought; so he employed himself very busily in putting together the few things he meant to take on his journey into that little-known place beyond the fen, where there were big towns, and people different to themselves; and as d.i.c.k packed his bundle he tried to keep back a weak tear or two which would gather as if to drop on the lavender-scented linen, that reminded him of her who had that night called him her boy.

But there was a stubborn feeling upon him which made him viciously knot together the handkerchief ends of his bundle, and then go and stand at the window and watch and listen for the coming of Tom.

For he had made up his mind to go with Tom if he came, without him if he failed, for he told himself the world elsewhere would not be so hard.

One hour--two hours pa.s.sed. He heard them strike on the old eight-day clock below. But no Tom.

Could he have repented and made up his mind not to keep faith, or was there some reason?

Never mind, he would go alone and fight the world, and some day people would be sorry for having suspected him as they did now.

He laughed bitterly, and stepped to the open window bundle in hand. He had but to swing himself out and drop to the ground, and trudge away into that romantic land--the unknown. Yes, he would go. "Good-bye, dear mother; father, good-bye!" he whispered softly; and the next moment one foot was over the window-sill, and he was about to drop, when a miserably absurd sound rose on the midnight air, a sound which made him dart back into his room like some guilty creature, as there rang out the strange cry:

"He--haw, he--haw!" as dismal a bray as Solomon had ever uttered in his life; and for no reason whatever, as it seemed, d.i.c.k Winthorpe went back and sat upon his bed thinking of the wheelwright's words:

That if he went away people would declare he fired the shot.

"I can't help it," cried d.i.c.k at last, after an hour's bitter struggle there in the darkness of the night; and once more he ran to the window, meaning to drop out, when, as if he saw what was about to take place, Solomon roused the echoes about the old buildings with another dismal bray.

"Who can run away with a donkey crying out at him like that!" said d.i.c.k to himself; and in spite of his misery, he once more seated himself upon the bed-side and laughed.

It was more a hysterical than a natural laugh; but it relieved d.i.c.k Winthorpe's feelings, and just then the clock struck two.

d.i.c.k sat on the bed-side and thought. He was not afraid to go--far from it. A reckless spirit of determination had come over him, and he was ready to do anything, dare anything; but all the same the wheelwright's words troubled him, and he could not master the feeling that it would be painful for the constant repet.i.tion to come to his mother's knowledge, till even she began to think that there must be some truth in the matter, and he would not be there to defend himself.

That was a painful thought, one which made d.i.c.k Winthorpe rise and go and seat himself on the window-sill and gaze out over the fen.

From where he was seated his eyes ranged over the portion where the drain was being cut; and as he looked, it seemed to him that all his troubles had dated from the commencement of the venture by his father, and those who had joined in the experiment.

Then he thought of the evening when Mr Marston had been brought in wounded, and the other cases which had evidently been the work of those opposed to the draining--the fire at Tallington's, the houghing of the horses, the shots fired, the blowing up of the sluice-gate.

"And they think I did it all," he said to himself with a bitter laugh; "a boy like me!"

Then he began considering as to who possibly could be the culprit, and thought and thought till his head ached, and he rose sadly and replaced the articles in his bundle in the drawer.

"I can't go," he said softly. "I'll face it out like a man, and they may say what they like."

He stood looking at his bed, with its white pillow just showing in the faint light which came through the open window, but it did not tempt him to undress.

"I can't sleep," he said; "and perhaps, if I lie down, I may not hear Tom coming, if he comes. Why is one so miserable? What have I done?"

There was no mental answer to his question, and he once more went softly across the room, and sat in the window-sill to gaze out across the fen.

How long he had been watching he could not tell, for his brain felt dazed, and he was in a half-dreamy state, when all of a sudden he grew wakeful and alert, for right away out over the mere he saw a faint gleam of light which flashed upon the water and then expired.

For a moment he thought that it might have been the reflection of a star, but it flashed out again, and then was gone.

The marsh lights always had a strange fascination for him, and this appearance completely changed the current of his thoughts. A few moments before and they were dull and sluggish, now they were all excitement; and he sat there longing for the next appearance when, as of old, he expected to see the faint light go dancing along, as a moth dances over the moist herbage, disappearing from time to time.

He strained his eyes, but there was no light, and he was beginning to think that it was fancy, when he heard a faint rustling apparently outside his door; and as he listened, he felt that someone must be going down stairs.

Then there was complete silence for a few minutes, and he was ready to think that both the light and the sound were fancy, when all doubts were set at rest, for the door below opened and someone pa.s.sed out.

It was still very dark, in spite of a faint sign of dawn in the north-east; but the watcher had no difficulty in making out the figure which pa.s.sed silently along in the shadow of the house, and close beneath him, to be that of his father.

What did it mean? d.i.c.k asked himself as he sat there holding his breath, while he watched intently, and saw his father steal from place to place in the most secretive manner, taking advantage of bush, wall, and outbuilding, and every now and then pausing as if gazing out across the fen.

"I know," thought d.i.c.k, as a flash of comprehension came across his brain. "He saw that light, and he is watching too."

The thought was quite exciting.

The reaction as depressing, for directly after he very naturally said to himself: "My father would not get out of bed to watch a will-o'-the-wisp."

But suppose it was not a will-o'-the-wisp, but a light!

He sat thinking and trying to trace which way his father had gone; and as far as he could make out, he had gone right down to the nearest spot to the water, where, about a hundred yards away, there was fair landing, by one of the many clumps of alder.

d.i.c.k had just come to the conclusion that he ought not to watch his father, who was angry enough with him as it was, and who would be more suspicious still if he again caught him at the window dressed, and he was about to close it, after wondering whether anyone would be on the water with a light--Dave, for instance--and if so, what form of fowling or netting it would be, when there was a low hiss--such a sound as is made by a snake--just beneath his window.

"d.i.c.k!"

"Hallo!"

"Couldn't come before. Ready?"