n of the man whom he believed to have shot his father!
and the rage Dick felt against the one seemed to be ready to fall upon
the other. But as his eyes met those of his old school-fellow and
companion full of sorrowful sympathy, Dick could only grasp Tom's hands,
feeling that he was a true friend, and in no wise answerable for his
father's sins.

"Ay, that's right," said a low, rough voice. "Nowt like sticking
together and helping each other in trouble. Bud don't you fret, Mester
Dick. Squire's a fine stark man, and the missus has happed him up
waarm, and you see the doctor will set him right."

"Thank you, Hicky," said Dick, calming down; and then he stood thinking
and asking himself how he could denounce the father of his old friend
and companion as the man who, for some hidden reason of his own, was the
plotter and executor of all these outrages.

At one moment he felt that he could not do this. At another there was
the blank suffering face of his father before his eyes, seeming to ask
him to revenge his injuries and to bring a scoundrel to justice.

For a time Dick was quite determined; but directly after there came
before him the face of poor, kind-hearted Mrs Tallington, who had
always treated him with the greatest hospitality, while, as he seemed to
look at her eyes pleading upon her husband's behalf, Tom took his hand
and wrung it.

"I'm going to stick by you, Dick," he said; "and you and I are going to
find out who did this, and when we do we'll show him what it is to shoot
at people, and burn people's homesteads, and hough their beasts."

Dick gazed at him wildly. Tom going to help him run his own father down
and condemn him by giving evidence when it was all found out!
Impossible! Those words of his old companion completely disarmed him
for the moment, and to finish his discomfiture, just then Farmer
Tallington came out of the cottage looking whiter and more haggard than
before.

He came to where the wheelwright was standing, and spoke huskily.

"I can't bear it," he said. "It is too horrible. Might hev been me,
and what would my poor lass do? Hickathrift, mun, the villain who does
all this must be found out."

"Ay, farmer, but how?"

"I don't know how," said the farmer, gazing from one to the other. "I
on'y know it must be done. If I'd gone on this morning I might have
found out something, but I went back."

Dick gazed at him searchingly, but the farmer did not meet his eyes.

"I'