‘Oh, the sordid old brute!’ said he of Mr. Rippenger.  ’How can he know the habits and feelings of gentlemen?  Your father’s travelling, and can’t write, of course.  My father’s in India, and I get a letter from him about once a year.  We know one another, and I know he’s one of the best officers in the British army.  It’s just the way with schoolmasters and tradesmen:  they don’t care whether a man is doing his duty to his country; he must attend to them, settle accounts with them—­hang them!  I’ll send you money, dear little lad, after I’ve left.’

He dispersed my brooding fit.  I was sure my father was a fountain of gold, and only happened to be travelling.  Besides, Heriot’s love for Julia, whom none of us saw now, was an incessant distraction.  She did not appear at prayers.  She sat up in the gallery at church, hardly to be spied.  A letter that Heriot flung over the gardenwall for her was returned to him, open, enclosed by post.

‘A letter for Walter Heriot,’ exclaimed Mr. Boddy, lifting it high for Heriot to walk and fetch it; and his small eyes blinked when Heriot said aloud on his way, cheerfully,

‘A letter from the colonel in India!’

Boddy waited a minute, and then said, ‘Is your father in good health?’

Heriot’s face was scarlet.  At first he stuttered, ’My father!—­I hope so!  What have you in common with him, sir?’

‘You stated that the letter was from your father,’ said Boddy.

‘What if it is, sir?’

‘Oh, in that case, nothing whatever to me.’

They talked on, and the youngest of us could perceive Boddy was bursting with devilish glee.  Heriot got a letter posted to Julia.  It was laid on his desk, with her name scratched completely out, and his put in its place.  He grew pale and sad, but did his work, playing his games, and only letting his friends speak to him of lessons and play.  His counsel to me was, that in spite of everything, I was always to stick to my tasks and my cricket.  His sadness he could not conceal.  He looked like an old lamp with a poor light in it.  Not a boy in the school missed seeing how Boddy’s flat head perpetually had a side-eye on him.

All this came to an end.  John Salter’s father lived on the other side of the downs, and invited three of us to spend a day at his house.  The selection included Heriot, Saddlebank, and me.  Mr. Rippenger, not liking to refuse Mr. Salter, consented to our going, but pretended that I was too young.  Salter said his mother and sisters very much wished to make my acquaintance.  We went in his father’s carriage.  A jolly wind blew clouds and dust and leaves:  I could have fancied I was going to my own father.  The sensation of freedom had a magical effect on me, so that I was the wildest talker of them all.  Even in the middle of the family I led the conversation; and I did not leave Salter’s house without receiving an assurance from his elder sisters that they were in love with me.  We drove