"Oh, don't be so hard," pleaded Lady Eleanor, "you who are always so
gentle. You, who have done so much for me, grant me this one little
thing more."

Colonel George looked at the beautiful face before him, and Lady
Eleanor knew that she had gained her point. "Well, well," he said at
last; "I will write on his behalf, and better still I will get my
father to write also, which will have more effect. But it is all
wrong," he added; "it is not discipline."

"I am quite sure that it will be all right," said Lady Eleanor with
great decision.

Colonel George shook his head smiling; but he and old Lord Fitzdenys
wrote, as he had promised; and it may as well be said that they
obtained pardon for Henry Mugford the deserter.

CHAPTER XII

The village was not a little awed by the strange turn that affairs had
taken, for the two noisiest tongues in it had been silenced, Mrs. Fry's
by the restoration of her Tommy's power of speech, Mrs. Mugford's by
the arrest of her son. The Corporal had been vindicated and his
slanderers confounded; but Lady Eleanor as usual did all that she could
to make unpleasant things as little unpleasant as possible. The
deserter was sent away to Plymouth so quietly that hardly any one found
it out, and his disconsolate mother was somewhat comforted by Lady
Eleanor's assurance that everything would be done to obtain mercy for
him. Moreover the Corporal declared that he would not touch the two
guineas reward that he had earned, but would hand them over to Lady
Eleanor to spend for the good of the parish as she should think best;
which fact leaking out through the servants at the Hall did much to
regain for him the goodwill that he had so unjustly lost.

Another thing also helped to restore harmony; for Dick could not leave
home for school without going round to say good-bye to all his friends,
and these were so numerous that there was hardly a cottage at which he
did not step in, being always sure of welcome and good wishes. The
farewells ended with a visit to old Sally Dart, who, feeble and
crippled though she was, had prepared a great feast of hot potato-cake
(which was made under her own eye by a neighbour, since she was too
weak to make it herself) honey and clouted cream; while the little
silver cream-jug and the six silver spoons, which the old squire and
his lady had given her at her marriage, were all brought out for so
great an occasion. A great meal they ate, the Corporal attac