"I am going to take your brother away with me, and I sha'n't let a moment go by without trying to put things square. I think the best thing will be for me to take him right up to London, and go straight to his employers; but I haven't told him so. If I did, he'd shy and kick; but it will be the best way. And I dare say a bit of a talk with the people will help to put matters right."

"But will they prosecute, Mr Burge? It would be so dreadful!"

"So it would, my dear; but they won't. They'll talk big about wanting to make an example, and that sort of thing, and then they'll come round, and I shall square it up. Oh, here he comes. There, say good-bye to your sister, young man, for we've no time to spare. Now, go in first.

Good-bye, Miss Thorne."

"Mr Burge, I cannot find words to tell you how grateful I am," cried Hazel in tears.

"I don't want you to," he replied bluntly, as he shook hands impressively, but with the greatest deference. "I couldn't find words to tell you, my dear, how grateful I am to think that you are ready to trust me when you want a friend."

Here Mr William Forth Burge stuck his hat on very fiercely, and went home without a word, Percy Thorne walking humbly by his side, and checking his desire to say to himself that after all, Mr William.

Forth Burge did seem to be a regular cad.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

MR BURGE IS BUSINESS-LIKE.

"I am the last person in the world, Rebecca, to interfere," said Beatrice, as she busied herself making a series of holes with some thick white cotton, which she wriggled till something like a pattern was contrived; "but I cannot sit still and see that young person misbehaving as she does."

"I quite agree with you, dear, and it shocks me to see into what a state of moral blindness poor Henry has plunged."

"Ah!" sighed her sister, "it is very sad;" and she sighed again and thought of a certain scarlet woman. "What would he say if he knew that Miss Thorne openly sent letters to Mr William Forth Burge?"

"But they might be business letters," said Rebecca.

"Miss Thorne has no right to send business letters to Mr William Forth Burge," said Beatrice angrily. "If there are any business matters in connection with the school, the letter, if letter there be--for it would be much more in accordance with Miss Thorne's duty if she came in all due humility--"

"Suitably dressed," said Rebecca.

"Exactly," a.s.sented her sister. "--to the Vicarage and stated what was required. Or if she wrote, it should be to the vicar, when the letter would be in due course referred to us, and we should see what ought to be done."

"Exactly so," a.s.sented Rebecca.

"Mr William Forth Burge has been a great benefactor to the schools; but they are the Church schools, and, for my part, I do not approve of everything being referred to him."

"I--I think you are right, Beatrice," a.s.sented Rebecca; "but Mr William Forth Burge has, as you say, been a great benefactor to the schools."

"Exactly; a very great benefactor, Rebecca; but that is no reason why Miss Thorne should write to him."

"I quite agree with you there, Beatrice; and now I have something more to tell you, which I have just heard as I came up the town."

"About the schools?"

"Well, not exactly about the schools, but about the school-cottage. I heard, on very good authority, that the Thornes have a young man staying in the house."

"A young man!"

"Yes; he arrived there yesterday afternoon, and Mr Chute, who was my informant, looked quite scandalised."

"We must tell Henry at once," cried Beatrice.

"Of what use would it be?" said Rebecca viciously. "He would only be angry, and tell us it was Miss Thorne's brother, or something of that sort."

"It is very, very terrible," sighed Beatrice, "Of what could Henry be thinking to admit such a girl to our quiet country district?"

Just at the same time their brother also was much exercised in his own mind on account of the letter that he had seen in Hazel's handwriting directed to Mr Burge, and he was troubled the more on finding that she should appeal to Mr Burge instead of to him--the head of the parish, and one who had shown so great a disposition to be her friend--for even then he could not own that he desired a closer intimacy.

The Reverend Henry Lambent knit his brows and asked himself again whether this was not some temptation that had come upon him, similar to those which had attacked the holy men of old; and as he sat and thought it seemed to him that it could not be, for Hazel Thorne grew to him fairer and more attractive day by day, and, fight hard as he would against those thoughts, they grew stronger and more masterful, while he became less able to cope with them.

And all this time Mr William Forth Burge, the stout and plain and ordinary, was working away on Hazel's behalf. He was showing the business side of his nature, and any one who had studied him now would easily have understood why it was that he had become so wealthy. For there was a straightforward promptness in all he did that impressed Percy a good deal; and when, after keeping him for some hours at his villa, wondering what was to happen next--hours that were employed in copying letters for his new friend--the said new friend announced that they were going up to London, Percy, with all the disposition to resist obeyed without a word, and followed to the station.

"Don't seem very well off," thought Percy, as Mr William Forth Burge took a couple of third-cla.s.s tickets for London.

He read the boy's thoughts, for he said sharply--

"Six shillings third cla.s.s; eighteen shillings first cla.s.s. Going this way saves one pound four."

Percy said, "Yes, sir," and subsided moodily into the corner of the carriage opposite to his companion, and but little was said on the journey up. Mr William Forth Burge took the boy to a quiet hotel, and wrote a letter or two, as it was too late to do any business that night.

The next morning Percy was left in the coffee-room to look furtively over the sporting news in the _Standard_ while his new friend went off to see Mr Geringer, who, on hearing his business, seemed greatly displeased at any one else meddling with the Thornes' affairs; and though he did not refuse to go with his visitor to intercede for Percy, he put him off till the next afternoon, and Percy's champion left his office chuckling to himself.

"Asks me to wait till next day," he said, "so that he may go and see the state of the market for himself. Won't do, Mr Geringer, sir. That's not William Forth Burge's way of doing business." And he went straight to the firm, gave his card, and was shown in to Mr Spark, a dull, heavy man, remarkable in the business for his inertia.

Yes, of course they should prosecute Percy Thorne, if that was what the visitor wanted to know; and if the said visitor wanted to know anything else, would he be kind enough to be quick, for Mr Spark's time was very valuable?

"Quick as you like, sir," said Mr William Forth Burge, who showed the new side of his character. "I've been in trade, and I know what's what.

Now, sir, I'm the friend of the boy's sister; father dead--mother a baby. Business is business. Prosecute the boy, and you put him in prison, and spend more money; you get none back. Forgive him, and take him on again, and, if it's fifty pounds, I'll pay what's lost."

Then followed a long argument, out of which Mr William Forth Burge came away a hundred pounds poorer, and with Percy Thorne free to begin the world again, but handicapped with a blurred character.

That evening they were back at Plumton.

"But there's going to be no prosecution, or anything of that sort, Miss Thorne; and, till we hear of something to suit him, he shall stop at my house and do clerk's work in my office."

"But I feel sure you have been paying away money to extricate him from this terrible difficulty, Mr Burge," cried Hazel.

"Well, and suppose I have," he said, smiling; "I've a right to do what I like with my own money, and it's all spent for the benefit of our schools."

"But, Mr Burge," cried Hazel eagerly, and speaking with the tears running down her cheeks, "how can I ever repay you?"

"Oh, I'll send in my bill some day," he said hastily. "But as I was going to say, Master Percy shall stay at my place for the present. I could easily place him at a butcher's or a meat salesman's, but that ain't genteel enough for a boy like him. So just you wait a bit and--"

"See," he would have said, but all this time he had been backing towards the door to avoid Hazel's thanks, and he escaped before his final word was spoken.

"There's something about that man I don't quite like," said Mrs Thorne as soon as their visitor had gone.

"Not like him, dear?" cried Hazel wonderingly.