Chapter 22

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_ CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

"I don't want to fight," thought Tom Blount, as he rushed off in pursuit of Pete Warboys, this time with full intention, and not led into it by accident. "Fighting means knocking the skin off one's knuckles, black eyes, nose bleeding, and perhaps getting thrashed. And I may be, for he's a big, strong, heavy fellow, and I don't think I could hit him half hard enough to make him care. But it seems to me as if I must have a go at him. Can't stand there and be pelted by such a fellow, it looks so cowardly. Besides, he's a bit afraid, or he wouldn't run away."

All this and much more thought Tom, as he ran on as fast as he could on diving into the wood when he left the road. An hour or so ago, when Pete rushed in among the trees, Tom had soon given up the chase; but he felt that it would not do to let the young scoundrel feel that he was a kind of modern bold outlaw, with a sanctuary of his own in the woods; so clenching his fists hard, Tom sped on, making up his mind to run his quarry down.

"Uncle James won't mind my leaving him, if I can go back and say I have punched Pete's head for throwing stones at him.--Bother!"

Tom gathered himself up, and stood flinching during a few moments, for he had caught his foot against a closely-sawn-off stump, and though the earth was covered with pine-needles it was hard.

But the accident did not detain him many moments. There in front was Pete showing from time to time, as he dodged in and out among the tall columnar tree-trunks, now in shadow, now passing across some patch of sunshine; and Tom ran on faster than before, the pain having made him feel angry, and as if he must, to use his own words, "take it out of Pete," he being the active cause.

From time to time the great hulking lad glanced back, expecting to see that he had shaken off his pursuer, but looked in vain, for Tom was now doggedly determined. His brow was knit, his teeth set, and his clenched fists held close to his sides, and after keeping up the high rate of speed for some minutes, he now, feeling that it was going to be a long chase, settled down to a steady football or hare-and-hound trot, which combined fair pace with a likelihood of being able to stay.

Pete Warboys too had been compelled to slacken somewhat in his clumsy bovine rush, and Tom observed with satisfaction, as the minutes went on, and they must have been--pursuer and pursued--toiling over the slippery fir-needles for quite a quarter of an hour, that Pete glanced over his shoulder more often than before.

"He's getting pumped out," muttered Tom. "He's so big that he can't keep his wind, and he'll stop short soon. Oh, I say, why don't I look where I'm going!"

For this time the sandy earth had suddenly given way beneath him, just in the darkest part of the wood, and he plumped right down to the bottom of a rough pit, and went on before he could stop himself right under the roots of a great fir-tree, half of which stood out bare and strange, over what looked like an enormous rabbit-hole.

Tom looked wonderingly at the hole, and backed out into the pit, climbed out, and continued his chase, rather breathlessly now, for the fall had not been good for his breathing apparatus. He had lost ground too, but he soon made that up, for Pete was getting exhausted; and, what seemed strange, since Tom's last fall he had turned off, and appeared to be running in a circle, till all at once he stopped short with his back up against a tree, panting heavily, and with the perspiration dripping from his forehead.

There was a vicious look in the fellow's countenance, for he was showing his teeth, and as Tom drew near, he spat on one hand, and took a fresh grip of the thick stick he carried. Then, taking a step forward, he raised the weapon, and aimed a savage blow at his adversary, that would in all probability have laid Tom _hors de combat_, at all events for a few minutes.

But to give good effect to a blow struck with a stick, the object aimed at must be at a certain distance. If the blow fall when the object is beyond or within that distance, its efficacy is very much diminished.

Now as Pete struck at Tom, the latter was for a time at exactly the right distance, but as the boy rushed at him, or rather leaped at him at last, he was not in the aforesaid position long enough, and the blow did not fall till he was right upon Pete, getting a smart rap, but having the satisfaction of seeing the young scoundrel go down as if shot, and roll over and over at the foot of the tree.

Tom went down too, for he could not check himself; but he was up first, and ready enough to avoid another vicious blow from the cudgel, and catch Pete right in the mouth a most unscientific blow delivered with his right fist. All the same though it did its work, and Pete went down again.

Once more he sprang up, and tried to strike with the stick, but Tom's blood was up, and he closed with him, getting right in beyond his guard, and for the next few minutes there was a fierce struggle, ending in both going down together, Tom unfortunately undermost, and by the time he gained his feet his adversary was off again, running as hard as he could go.

"A coward!" muttered Tom, after running a few yards and then giving up, to stand panting and exhausted. "Ugh! how my side hurts!" he said, as he clapped his hand upon his ribs where the blow from the stick had fallen. "I don't care though; I won, and he has gone."

He stood trying to catch sight of Pete again, but could not see him, for the simple reason that the lad had dropped down behind a clump of bracken growing silver-leaved in the sunshine in an opening in the wood, and here he crept on, watching as, after hesitating, Tom began to retire hastily, so as to return to his uncle in the chair.

Tom did not go far though without stopping, for he had aimed to reach the pit into which he had fallen, and here he stood gazing down, evidently puzzled, for there was something particular about the place which attracted him; while, to increase his interest, all at once there was a rustling noise, and Pete Warboys' long lean dog thrust out its head from the side hole beneath the fir-tree roots, which hung out quite bare, looked up, saw who was gazing down, turned, and thrust out its long bony tail instead. This, however, was only seen for a moment and then gone.

"That's strange," thought Tom, as he walked on back pretty fast now, for it suddenly occurred to him that his uncle must be out of patience, and that he had been longer than he thought for.

He found too that he had run farther than he thought, and he was getting pretty hot and breathless by the time he trotted out of the wood, and into the sandy lane, where, instead of his uncle's face as he sat looking back impatiently in the chair, there was the bare road and nothing more, save a red admiral butterfly flitting here and there and settling in the dust.

"He must have asked somebody passing to wheel him back," thought Tom, who immediately began to play Red Indian or Australian black, and look for the trail--to wit, the thin wheel-marks left by the chair. But though he found those which had been made in coming plainly lining the soft sandy road, and ran in different directions toward home, there were no returning tracks.

"Then he must have gone on," thought Tom; and he ran back to where he had left his uncle, to see now faintly in the hard road a continuation of the three wheel-marks, so very distinct from any that would have been left by cart or carriage, being very narrow, and three instead of two or four.

He went on slowly trying to trace the wheel-marks, but the road soon became so hard that he missed them; a few yards farther on he saw the faint mark made by one, then again two showed, and then they ceased, but he was on the right track, he knew; and walking rapidly on down the hill, with his eyes now on the road, now right ahead toward the river and the ford, he began wondering who could have come along there, and where his uncle had made whoever it was take him.

"Why it would be miles round to get home this way," thought Tom. "Perhaps he was thirsty, and asked some one to take him down to the river, and is waiting."

It was not a good solution of the problem, and he was not satisfied, for there was no sign of the chair near the ford. But there were traces again in the sand which had been washed to the side, and here the chair had made a curve and run close to the bank for a few yards; then out into the hard road, and he saw no more for a couple of hundred yards, and then they were on the left-hand side, and Tom's blood began to turn cold, as they say, for the tracks bore off to the side road leading down into the sand-pit.

"Why the chair ran away with him, and perhaps he's killed."

At this thought Tom's legs ran away with him down into the thick sandy road, where the wheel-marks were deeply imprinted, showing that the chair had been that way.

Now he had never been down into the pit, and only once as far as the edge, into which he had peered from the road above, whence he had looked down upon a colony of martins darting in and out of their holes in the sand-cliff. He had determined to examine the place, but that morning he was compelled to hurry back to breakfast. Now he had to explore the depths of the pit in a very different mood; and he was not half-way down the slope when he found that the wheels had suddenly curved off, and then, from the marks on the smooth sand, it had evidently turned over. And there, sixty or seventy yards away, and fully a hundred feet below him, it lay bottom upwards, while away to its right sat its late occupant, making signs with his stick.

Tom did not attempt to go on down the roadway, which meant quite a journey, but began to descend at once, slipping, scrambling, falling and rolling over in the loose sand, which gave way at every step, and took him with it, till at last, hot and breathless, he reached the invalid's side.

"Hurt, uncle?" he panted.

"Hurt, sir?" cried Uncle James angrily. "I'm nearly killed. I don't think I've a whole bone left in my body. You dog! You scoundrel! You did it on purpose. You knew it was not safe to leave that miserable, wretched wreck of a thing. It was all out of revenge, and you wanted to kill me."

"Oh no, uncle," cried Tom, staring in astonishment at the vigour his uncle had displayed. For there was no moaning, no holding the hand to the breast, and complaining of shortness of breath, but an undue display of excitement and anger, which had made cheeks burn and eyes glisten.

"I'm very sorry, uncle; it was that young scoundrel's fault."

"I don't believe it, sir. It was a trick. Disgraceful!"

"Wait a minute, uncle, and I'll fetch the chair. I'll get it here, and then help you up to the top before I take it up."

"Fetch the chair!" stormed James Brandon. "It's a wreck, sir; one wheel's off, and the front one's all bent sidewise. Here, give me your hand."

He caught hold of the extended wrist, and with that and the stick, toiled up the steep slope, to the boy's astonishment; and when they had reached the road, jerked the wrist from him, and walked on without a word till they came in sight of the house, when Tom plucked up the courage to speak.

"Really, uncle, I did not think of anything but running after that lad."

"I want no excuses, sir," cried Uncle James fiercely. "I know what it means. You are too idle--you are sick of wheeling the chair. It was all a planned thing. But mind, I shall take a note of it, and you will find out that you've made the great mistake of your life. Here, you sir!"

This was to David, who was in the garden; and he hurried up.

"Go and order me a fly to come here directly."

"From the station, sir? It's over there all day now."

"From anywhere, only make haste."

"Yes, sir," said David; and he gave Tom a sharp look as much as to say, "Rather too much of a good thing to go over there twice." Then he fetched his coat and went off.

"Hallo! Walking?" cried Uncle Richard, coming out of the observatory. "Where's the chair?"

"Broken, smashed, thanks to this young scoundrel; and it's a mercy I'm alive. But I'll have no more of this."

Uncle James strode into the house, and his brother turned to Tom for an explanation, and had it.

"But he did not walk back all the way?"

"Every step, uncle, and didn't seem to mind it."

"Humph!" ejaculated Uncle Richard, frowning, as he locked up the yard gate and followed his brother into the house.

Half-an-hour later Mrs Fidler announced dinner, when Uncle James came down looking black as thunder, and answered his brother in monosyllables, refusing to speak once to Tom, at whom he scowled heavily.

"I'm sorry you had such an upset, James," said Uncle Richard at last.

"Thank you," was the cold reply.

"But I don't think you are any the worse for it."

"Thank you!" said Uncle James again, but more shortly.

"Tom, my lad, tell David as soon as dinner is over to borrow the Vicar's cart, and go to the sand-pit and fetch the broken chair."

"David has gone to the station, uncle," said Tom.

"Station? What for?"

"Uncle sent him for the fly."

"Fly?"

"Yes, sir," said Uncle James. "I sent your gardener for the fly, and if there's any charge for his services I will pay him. I see I have outstayed my welcome, and the sooner I am off the better."

"My dear James, don't be absurd," said Uncle Richard. "What you say is childish."

"Of course, sir; sick and helpless men are always childish."

"There, don't take it like that. Tom assures me it was an accident. If you are upset by it, let me send for the doctor to see you."

"Thank you; I'll send for my own doctor as soon as I get back to town."

"You're not going back to town to-day," said Uncle Richard, smiling.

"We shall see about that," said Uncle James, rising from his place, for the dinner was at an end, and walking firmly enough out of the room.

Uncle Richard frowned and looked troubled. Mrs Fidler looked at Tom, and as soon as they were alone she began to question him, and heard all.

"Well," she said, "I'm not going to make any remarks, my dear, it isn't my duty; but I will say this, I don't like to see your dear uncle imposed upon even by his brother, and I hope to goodness Mr James will keep his word, for I don't believe you upset him on purpose."

Uncle James did keep his word, for an hour later he was in the fly with his portmanteau on his way to the station.

"And never give me so much as a shilling, Master Tom, and me been twice to fetch that fly. If he wasn't your uncle, sir, I'd call him mean. But what did you say? I'm to fetch the chair, as is lying broken at the big sand-pit?"

"Yes, in Mr Maxted's cart."

"Did it fall over?"

"Yes, right over, down the slope from top to bottom."

"And him in it, sir?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll forgive him, and young Mr Sam Brandon too. My word, sir, I'd ha' give something to ha' been there to see."

"But he must have hurt himself, David."

"What there, sir? Tchah! that sand's as soft as silk. Wouldn't like to come and help fetch the chair, sir?"

"Yes, I should, David; I should like the ride."

"Then come on, sir, and we'll go round the other way from the Vicarage gates. Right from top to bottom, eh, sir? Well, I would have give something to ha' been there to see." _

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