nge of a set of ignorant prejudiced people who
cannot see the good of the work upon which we are engaged, I decline to
have myself made a target. I ask you, then, who this was. Will you
speak?"

Dick shook his head.

"Well, then, I am afraid you will be forced to speak. I consider it to
be my duty to have these outrages investigated, and to do this I shall
write up to town. The man or men who will be sent down will be of a
different class to the unfortunate constable who was watching here.
Now, come, why not speak?"

"Mr Marston!" cried Dick hoarsely.

"Yes! Ah, that is better! Now, come, Dick; we began by being friends.
Let us be greater friends than ever, as we shall be, I am sure."

"No, no," cried Dick passionately. "I want to be good friends, but I
cannot speak to you. I don't know anything for certain, I only
suspect."

"Then whom do you suspect?"

"Yes; who is it?" cried Tom angrily.

"Hold your tongue!" said Dick so fiercely that Tom shrank away.

"I say you shall speak out," retorted the lad, recovering himself.

"For your father's sake speak out, my lad," said Mr Marston.

Dick shook his head and turned away, to go back into the wheelwright's
cottage, where, suffering from a pain and anguish of mind to which he
had before been a stranger, he sought refuge at his mother's side, and
shared her toil of watching his father as he lay there between life and
death.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

TROUBLE GROWS.

The next fortnight was passed in a state of misery, which made Dick
Winthorpe feel as if he had ceased to be a boy, and had suddenly become
a grown-up man.

He wanted to do what was right. He wished for the man who had shot his
father in this cowardly way to be brought to justice; but he was not
sure that Farmer Tallington was the guilty man, and he shrank from
denouncing the parent of his companion from childhood, and his father's
old friend.

Mr Marston came over again and tried him sorely. But the more Dick
Winthorpe thought, the more he grew determined that he would not speak
unless he felt quite sure.

It was one day at the end of the fortnight that Mr Marston tried him
again, and Dick told him that his father would soon be able to speak for
himself, and till then he would not say a word.

Mr Marston left him angrily, feeling bitterly annoyed with the lad,
but, in spite of himself, admiring his firmness.

Dick stood in the road gazing after him sadly, and was about to retrac