leader whither he was being
conducted. Raynham was out of sight. They were a long way down the
valley, miles from Lobourne, in a country of sour pools, yellow brooks,
rank pasturage, desolate heath. Solitary cows were seen; the smoke of a
mud cottage; a cart piled with peat; a donkey grazing at leisure,
oblivious of an unkind world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in the
first loneliness of creation; uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot
possibly care for, and must despise. Ripton was in despair.

"Where are you going to?" he inquired with a voice of the last time of
asking, and halted resolutely.

Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere."

"Anywhere!" Ripton took up the moody word. "But ain't you awfully
hungry?" he gasped vehemently, in a way that showed the total emptiness
of his stomach.

"No," was Richard's brief response.

"Not hungry!" Ripton's amazement lent him increased vehemence. "Why, you
haven't had anything to eat since breakfast! Not hungry? I declare I'm
starving. I feel such a gnawing I could eat dry bread and cheese!"

Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have actuated a similar
demonstration of the philosopher.

"Come," cried Ripton, "at all events, tell us where you're going to
stop."

Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The injured and hapless
visage that met his eye disarmed him. The lad's nose, though not exactly
of the dreaded hue, was really becoming discoloured. To upbraid him would
be cruel. Richard lifted his head, surveyed the position, and exclaiming
"Here!" dropped down on a withered bank, leaving Ripton to contemplate
him as a puzzle whose every new move was a worse perplexity.

CHAPTER III

Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not written or
formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and invariably acted
upon by the loyal and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must
remember. Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever he may think
proper to lead; to back out of an expedition because the end of it frowns
dubious, and the present fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on
the road, and return home without him: these are tricks which no boy of
spirit would be guilty of, let him come to any description of mortal
grief in consequence. Better so than have his own conscience denouncing
him sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are not troubled by this
conscience, and the eyes and the lip