rolled down the narrow brick path to the gate, with his hands in the
pockets of his flowered dressing-gown, and looked up and down the road,
and up at the sky, and finally at the two dusty figures opposite on the
bench. It was on Frank that his gaze rested, and just then, aided by a
quiet poke from Barney's elbow, the boy roused himself, sat up, and
rubbed his eyes.

"Jintleman wants yer," said Barney, whispering hoarsely in his ear.

Hardly awake, Frank stumbled across the road, and mechanically touched
his cap. The old gentleman stood beaming benignly at him through his
spectacles.

"What do you want, my lad?" he said in a kind voice.

Directly Frank heard him speak he knew he could not be the schoolmaster,
but the parson of the village. Parson at Danecross used to speak in the
same sort of way. He felt ashamed to beg, and looked back at Barney for
support, who immediately came slouching up with his white mice, and
began to speak in his usual professional whine.

The old gentleman waved his hand impatiently.

"Stop," he said; "I don't want to hear any of those stories. You can't
impose upon me, so you needn't try." Then he turned to Frank. "Are you
willing to work for your supper and a bed in the hay-loft to-night?"

"Oh yes, sir," said Frank eagerly; "and so's Barney too."

The rector, for such he was, glanced somewhat doubtfully at Barney.

"Well," he said, "there's an hour's weeding in my kitchen-garden that
you can easily do before dark, and then you shall have bread and cheese,
and may sleep in the loft. Where have you come from?"

He spoke to Frank, but the boy did not answer; and Barney, coming glibly
to the rescue, had in a few moments woven an ingenious fable, in which
he frequently referred to his companion as "his little brother."

The rector listened without further question, but his shrewd grey eyes
rested suspiciously on Barney when he had finished his story.

"Come this way," he said, and led them round to the back of the house,
where there was a neatly kept kitchen-garden, with borders of homely
flowers, and a small orchard at the end of it. Here he paused, and
showed the boys that one of the gravel walks was thickly covered with
grass weeds. A man leant on the orchard gate smoking a pipe.

"Andrew," said the rector, "when those two boys have weeded that path
they are to have supper and a bed in the loft."

The man touched his cap with a very ill-pleased expression, and the old