er let me hear all about it, for I fear there must have
been worse scrapes than this of the stones.'

'Worse!' cried Tom--'sure nothing could be worserer!'

'I wish there were no evils worse than careless forgetfulness,' said
Louis.

'I didn't forget!' said Tom. 'I meant to have told you whenever you
came to see me, but'--his eyes filled and his voice began to
alter--'you never came, and she at the Terrace wouldn't look at me!
And Bill and the rest of them was always at me, asking when I expected
my aristocrat, and jeering me 'cause I'd said you wasn't like the rest
of 'em. So then I thought I'd have my liberty too, and show I didn't
care no more than they, and spite you all.'

'How little one thinks of the grievous harm a little selfish
heedlessness may do!' sighed Louis, half aloud. 'If you had only
looked to something better than me, Tom! And so you ran into mischief?'

Half confession, half vindication ensued, and the poor fellow's story
was manifest enough. His faults had been unsteadiness and misplaced
independence rather than any of the more degrading stamp of evils. The
public-house had not been sought for liquor's sake, but for that of the
orator who inflamed the crude imaginations and aspirations that
effervesced in the youth's mind; and the rudely-exercised authority of
master and foreman had only driven his fierce temper further astray.
With sense of right sufficient to be dissatisfied with himself, and
taste and principle just enough developed to loathe the evils round
him, hardened and soured by Louis's neglect, and rendered discontented
by Chartist preachers, he had come to long for any sort of change or
break; and the tidings of the accident, coupled with the hard words
which he knew himself to deserve but too well, had put the finishing
stroke.

Hearing that the police were in pursuit of him, he had fancied it was
on account of the harm done by his negligence. 'I hid about for a
day,' he said: 'somehow I felt as if I could not go far off, till I
heard how you were, my Lord, and I'd made up my mind that as soon as
ever I heard the first stroke of the bell, I'd go and find the police,
and his Lordship might hang me, and glad!'

Louis was nearer a tear than a smile.

'Then Mr. Frost finds me, and was mad at me. Nothing wasn't bad enough
for me, and he sets Mr. Warren to see me off, so I had nothing for it
but to cut.'

'What did you think of doing?' sighed Louis.

'I made for the sea.