His hankering was for Illershall, and Louis, thinking of the judicious care, the evening school, and the openings for promotion, decided at once that the experiment should be tried without loss of time.  He desired Tom to bring him ink and paper, and hastily wrote: 

’Dear Mr. Dobbs,—­You would do me a great kindness by employing this poor fellow, and bearing with him.  I have managed him very ill, but he would reward any care.  Have an eye to him, and put him in communication with the chaplain.  If you can take him, I will write more at length.  If you have heard of my accident, you will excuse more at present. 
                            ’Yours very truly,
          
                         ‘Fitzjocelyn.’

Then arose the question, how Tom was to get to Illershall.  He did not know; and Louis directed his search into the places where the loose money in his pocket might have been put.  When it was found, Tom scrupled at the proposed half-sovereign.  Three-and-fourpence would pay for his ticket.  ’You will want a supper and a bed.  Go respectably, Tom, and keep so.  It will be some consolation for the mischief I have done you!’

‘You done me harm!’ cried Tom.  ’Why, ’tis all along of you that I ain’t a regularly-built scamp!’

‘Very irregularly built, whatever you are!’ said Louis.  But I’ll tell you what you shall do for me,’ continued he, with anxious earnestness.  ’Do you know the hollow ash-tree that shades over Inglewood stile?  It has a stout sucker, with a honeysuckle grown into it—­coming up among the moss, where the great white vase-shaped funguses grew up in the autumn.’

‘I know him, my Lord,’ said Tom, brightening at the detail, given with all a sick man’s vivid remembrance of the out-of-doors world.

’I have fixed my mind on that stick!  I think it has a bend at the root.  Will you cut it for me, and trim it up for a walking-stick?’

‘That I will, my Lord!’

’Thank you.  Bring it up to me between seven and eight in the morning, if you please; and so I shall see you again—­’

Mr. Holdsworth was already entering to close the conversation, which had been already over-long and exciting, for Louis, sinking back, mournfully exclaimed, ’The medley of that poor boy’s mind is the worst of my pieces of work.  I have made him too refined for one class, and left him too rough for another—­discontented with his station, and too desultory and insubordinate to rise, nobleness of nature turning to arrogance, fact and fiction all mixed up together.  It would be a study, if one was not so sorry!’

Nevertheless, Mr. Holdsworth could not understand how even Fitzjocelyn could have given the lad a recommendation, and he would have remonstrated, but that the long interview had already been sufficiently trying; so he did his best to have faith in his eccentric friend’s good intentions.