enough. Disgraceful!
disgraceful! It would have been bad enough in the village lads and the
farm labourers' boys; but in the young gentlemen of the Friary it is
outrageous. Silence!" he nearly shouted, as Nic began to speak. "I
tell you I saw enough. You, sir, were attacking Green with a violence
that was nothing less than brutal and savage. I am shocked, quite
shocked. Such conduct cannot be borne. Ladies present too, exposed to
seeing your ruffianly violence."

"But, sir--" began Nic.

"How dare you speak, sir, after I have ordered you to be silent! Your
half-holiday is cancelled. Back all of you to the Friary; I will see
you on my return. Now, my dears, we will resume our walk."

The doctor turned upon his heels, and went off with his ladies talking
in a loud voice about botany, the words _Ranunculaceae_ and
_Caryophyllaceae_ being plainly heard as he stopped and picked a yellow
blossom and a tuft of weed, the young ladies glancing back twice at the
boys who had been guilty of so disgraceful a breach of scholastic
etiquette as to have their fight take place upon an open common and let
it be seen.

Nic stood arranging his jacket and torn-off collar, looking down rather
dismally at Green, and wishing that he had not hit him quite so hard;
for his adversary was seated upon the grass where there was no furze,
embracing his knees and resting his brow upon them, softly swaying his
head from side to side.

Tomlins was the first to speak, for the others were looking after the
doctor, and were--especially the two seconds--wondering what the doctor
would say when he came back, and how severe their punishment would be.

The fight had done the little dark-eyed fellow good. It was like so
much liniment rubbed into his bruise to see the brutal tyrant of the
school well thrashed; and feeling that with such a protector as Nic he
had no more to fear from Green, he was not above giving expression to
his thoughts.

"Never you mind, Nic Braydon," he said. "I shall speak out when the
doctor has us up. It wasn't your fault, but bully Gooseberry Green's.
He began it, knocking me about, kicking me--a brute. I shall tell the
doctor everything just as it happened."

At this Green raised his face to dart a vindictive, threatening look at
the little fellow, but he had not paused to think about the state of his
face, which was comic in the extreme, and instead of alarming Tomlins
made him forget his lameness more and mor