"That"ll be splendid. Well, I must go in now, so good-bye, Newcome, and shake hands."
What a grip was that! on one side all trust and fervour, and on the other all fraud and malice!
Tom Drift was not yet utterly bad. Would that he had allowed his conscience to speak and his better self prevail! Half a dozen times in the course of his walk from the playground to the school he repented of the wicked part he was playing in the scheme to injure Charlie. But half a dozen times the thought of Gus and his taunts, and the recollection of his own bruised forehead came to drive out all pa.s.sing sentiments of pity or remorse.
Charlie rejoined his chum with a beaming face.
"Well," asked Jim, "what has he been saying to humbug you this time?"
"Nothing very particular; and I won"t let you call him a humbug. I say, Jim, old boy, he"s made it up at last, and we"re friends, Tom Drift and I! Hurrah! I was never so glad, isn"t it jolly?"
Jim by no means shared his friend"s enthusiasm. Like his elder brother, he instinctively disliked Tom Drift, without exactly being able to give a reason.
His reserve, however, had no effect on Charlie"s high spirits. At last the wish of his heart had been gained! No longer did he walk with the burden of a broken promise weighting his neck; no longer did the consciousness of having an enemy oppress him.
"Simpleton!" many of my readers will exclaim. Perhaps he was; but even if you laugh at him, I think you will hardly despise him for his simple- mindedness, for who would not rather be such a one than the tempter, Tom Drift?
All that week he was jubilant. Boys looked round in astonishment at the shrillness of his whistle and the ring of his laughter. His corner of the cla.s.s room was a simple Babel, and the number of apples he bestowed in charity was prodigious.
Something, every one could see, had happened to make him happier than ever. Few knew what that something was, and fewer still knew what it meant.
"What are you up to to-morrow?" asked the elder Halliday of his f.a.g on the Friday evening.
"Fishing," briskly replied the boy.
"You"re for ever fishing," said Joe. "I suppose that young brother of mine is going with you?"
"No; Jim"s going to play in the match against the Badgers."
The "Badgers," let me explain, was the name of a scratch cricket eleven made up of boys in the first, second and third forms.
"Are you going alone, then?"
Charlie felt uncomfortable as he answered,--
"No."
"Whom are you going with?" pursued the inquiring Joe.
"A fellow in the fifth who asked me to come."
"What"s his name?"
Charlie had no help for it now.
"Tom Drift," he faltered.
"Tom Drift! I thought you and he were at loggerheads."
"Oh, don"t you know we"ve made it up? He was awfully kind about it, and said he was sorry, when it was really my fault, and we shook hands, and to-morrow we are going to fish in a place he knows where there"s no end of trout."
"Where"s that?"
"He didn"t want me to tell, for fear everybody should come and spoil the sport; but I suppose I can tell you, though; it"s up the Sharle, near Gurley."
"Humph! I"ve fished there before now. Not such a wonderful lot of fish, either."
"I suppose you won"t be there to-morrow?" asked Charlie nervously, afraid of losing the confidence of Tom Drift by attracting strangers to his waters.
"Not if I know it," replied Joe. "I say, youngster, I thought you had given up the notion of making up to that fellow?"
"I didn"t make up to him, only I can"t be sorry to be friends with him--"
"Well, I hope you won"t be sorry now you"ve done it. Take care what you"re about, that"s all."
Charlie was again perplexed to understand why Halliday seemed to have such a dislike to poor Tom.
Just as he was going off to bed Joe stopped him and asked,--
"By the way, shall you be using your watch to-morrow?"
"Well, I promised I"d take it, to see how the time went; but I dare say we could do without it, and I would like to lend it to you, Halliday."
"Not a bit of it," replied the other. "I can do without it as well as you. I am going to walk over to Whitstone Woods and back."
"Hullo, that"s a long trot," said Charlie. "It must be nearly thirty miles."
"Something like that," said Joe. "Walcot and I are going to make a day of it."
"Which way do you go?"
"Through Gurley, and then over Rushton Common and past Slingcomb."
"Never! I wish I could do thirty miles at a stretch."
"So you will some day. Good-night."
And Charlie went to bed, to dream of the lance-wood top of his rod and the trout in the Sharle.
In the meanwhile the conspirators had had another meeting in Drift"s den.
"Well, have you hooked him?" asked Gus.
"Yes; it"s all right. He took it all in like a lamb."
"And all the school," said Margetson, "is talking of the great reconciliation, and the gratification which that event will undoubtedly afford to your venerable mother."
"Shut up, will you, Margetson? I"ve had quite enough of that chaff."