gesticulating
furiously. It was but a glimpse; again the whip was plied, the cob
frantically broke into a gallop, the gig jolted and bumped and swerved,
and it was not till they had put a good mile between themselves and the
stout man that Kenelm succeeded in obtaining possession of the whip and
calming the cob into a rational trot.

"Young gentleman," then said Kenelm, "perhaps you will have the goodness
to explain."

"By and by; get on, that's a good fellow; you shall be well paid for it,
well and handsomely."

Quoth Kenelm, gravely, "I know that in real life payment and service
naturally go together. But we will put aside the payment till you tell
me what is to be the service. And first, whither am I to drive you? We
are coming to a place where three roads meet; which of the three shall I
take?"

"Oh, I don't know; there is a finger-post. I want to get to,--but it is
a secret; you'll not betray me? Promise,--swear."

"I don't swear except when I am in a passion, which, I am sorry to say,
is very seldom; and I don't promise till I know what I promise; neither
do I go on driving runaway boys in other men's gigs unless I know that I
am taking them to a safe place, where their papas and mammas can get at
them."

"I have no papa, no mamma," said the boy, dolefully and with quivering
lips.

"Poor boy! I suppose that burly brute is your schoolmaster, and you are
running away home for fear of a flogging."

The boy burst out laughing; a pretty, silvery, merry laugh: it thrilled
through Kenelm Chillingly. "No, he would not flog me: he is not a
schoolmaster; he is worse than that."

"Is it possible? What is he?"

"An uncle."

"Hum! uncles are proverbial for cruelty; were so in the classical days,
and Richard III. was the only scholar in his family."

"Eh! classical and Richard III.!" said the boy, startled, and looking
attentively at the pensive driver. "Who are you? you talk like a
gentleman."

"I beg pardon. I'll not do so again if I can help it."--"Decidedly,"
thought Kenelm, "I am beginning to be amused. What a blessing it is to
get into another man's skin, and another man's gig too!" Aloud, "Here
we are at the fingerpost. If you are running away from your uncle, it is
time to inform me where you are running to."

Here the boy leaned over the gig and examined the fingerpost. Then he
clapped his hands joyfully.

"All right! I thought so, 'To Tor-Hadham, eighteen miles.' That's the
road to 'Tor-Hadham."