the mother's heart leap with joyful hope
at succor so powerful.

Oh, she could have kissed the stout village blacksmith, whose deep
sonorous lungs rang close to her. Never had any man's voice sounded to
her so like a god's as this stout blacksmith's "hilloop! hilloop!"
close and loud in her ear, and those at the end of the line hallooed
"hillo-op; hillo-op!" like an echo; and so they passed on, through bush
and brier, till their voices died away in the distance.

A boy detached himself from the line, and ran to Lady Bassett with a
traveling rug. It was Reginald.

"You put on this," said he. He shook it, and, standing on tiptoe, put
it over her shoulders.

"Thank you, dear," said she. "Where is papa?"

"Oh, he is in the line, and the Highmore swell and all."

"Mr. Richard Bassett?"

"Air, his kid is out on the loose, as well as ours."

"Oh, Reginald, if they should quarrel!"

"Why, our governor can lick him, can't he?"

CHAPTER XL.

"OH, don't talk so. I wouldn't for all the world they should quarrel."

"Well, we have got enough fellows to part them if they do."

"Dear Reginald, you have been so good to me, and you are so clever;
speak to some of the men, and let there be no more quarreling between
papa and that man."

"All right," said the boy.

"On second thoughts take me to papa; I'll be by his side, and then they
cannot."

"You want to walk through the wood? that is a good joke. Why, it is
like walking through a river, and the young wood slapping your eyes,
for you can't see every twig by this light, and the leaves sponging
your face and shoulders: and the briers would soon strip your gown into
ribbons, and make your little ankles bleed. No, you are a lady; you
stay where you are, and let us men work it. We shan't find him yet
awhile. I must get near the governor. When we find my lord, I'll give a
whistle you could hear a mile off."

"Oh, Reginald, are you sure he is in the wood?"

"I'd bet my head to a chany orange. You might as well ask me, when I
track a badger to his hole, and no signs of his going out again,
whether old long-claws is there. I wish I was as sure of never going
back to school as I am of finding that little lot. The only thing I
don't like is, the young muff's not giving us a halloo back. But, any
way, I'll find 'em, _alive or dead."_

And, with this pleasing assurance, the little imp scudded off, leaving
the mother glued to the spot with terror.

For full an hour m