“Don’t you be afeard ma’am,” he went on confidentially.  “I don’t think as anything is going to be done to him.  I ain’t got no warrant, and so I don’t look upon it as regular business.  I expects it will be just a blowing up.  It will be just the squire, and not the magistrate, I takes it.  He told me to have him up there at ten, but as he said nothing about custody, I thought I would do it my own way and come to you quiet like; so if you say as Master Walsham shall be up there at ten o’clock, I’ll just take your word for it and won’t come to fetch him.  The doctor was allus very good to me and my missus, and I shouldn’t like to be walking through Sidmouth with my hand on his son’s collar.”

“Thank you, Hobson,” Mrs. Walsham said quietly.  “You can rely upon it my son shall be there punctually.  He has nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.”

Full of rage as Richard Horton had been, as he started for home, he would never have brought the matter before the squire on his own account.  His case was too weak, and he had been thrashed by a boy younger than himself.  Thus, he would have probably chosen some other way of taking his vengeance; but it happened that, just as he arrived home, he met his tutor coming out.  The latter was astounded at Richard’s appearance.  His eyes were already puffed so much that he could scarcely see out of them, his lips were cut and swollen, his shirt stained with blood, his clothes drenched and plastered with red mud.

“Why, what on earth has happened, Richard?”

Richard had already determined upon his version of the story.

“A brute of a boy knocked me down into the water,” he said, “and then knocked me about till he almost killed me.”

“But what made him assault you in this outrageous manner?” his tutor asked.  “Surely all the boys about here must know you by sight; and how one of them would dare to strike you I cannot conceive.”

“I know the fellow,” Richard said angrily.  “He is the son of that doctor fellow who died two years ago.”

“But what made him do it?” the tutor repeated.

“He was sailing his boat, and it got stuck, and he threw in some stones to get it off; and I helped him, and I happened to hit the mast of his beastly boat, and then he flew at me like a tiger, and that’s all.”

“Well, it seems to be a monstrous assault, Richard, and you must speak to the squire about it.”

“Oh, no, I sha’n’t,” Richard said hastily.  “I don’t want any row about it, and I will pay him off some other way.  I could lick him easy enough if it had been a fair fight, only he knocked me down before I was on my guard.  No, I sha’n’t say anything about it.”