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 home--back to prison, we called it--full of good
things, talking of Salter's father's cellar of wine and of my majority
Burgundy, which I said, believing it was true, amounted to twelve
hundred dozen; and an appointment was made for us to meet at Dipwell
Farm, to assist in consuming it, in my honour and my father's. That
matter settled, I felt myself rolling over and over at a great rate, and
clasping a juniper tree. The horses had trenched from the chalk road
on to the downs. I had been shot out. Heriot and Salter had jumped
out--Heriot to look after me; but Saddlebank and the coachman were
driving at a great rate over the dark slope. Salter felt some anxiety
concerning his father's horses, so we left him to pursue them, and
walked on laughing, Heriot praising me for my pluck.

'I say good-bye to you to-night, Richie,' said he. 'We're certain to
meet again. I shall go to a military school. Mind you enter a cavalry
regiment when you're man enough. Look in the Army List, you'll find
me there. My aunt shall make a journey and call on you while you're at
Rippenger's, so you shan't be quite lonely.'

To my grief, I discovered that Heriot had resolved he would not return
to school.

'You'll get thrashed,' he said; 'I can't help it: I hope you've grown
tough by this time. I can't stay here. I feel more like a dog than a man
in that house now. I'll see you back safe. No crying, young cornet!'

We had lost the sound of the carriage. Heriot fell to musing. He
remarked that the accident took away from Mr. Salter the responsibility
of delivering him at Surrey House, but that he, Heriot, was bound,
for Mr. Salter's sake, to conduct me to the doors; an unintelligible
refinement of reasoning, to my wits. We reached our town between two
and three in the morning. There was a ladder leaning against one of the
houses in repair near the school. 'You are here, are you!' said Heriot,
speaking to the ladder: 'you 'll do m