back, of course. I'm not going through all that again to-day to
find old Distin, and hear him sneer about you. He's always going on.
Says Syme has no business to have you at the rectory to mix with
gentlemen."

"Oh, he says that, does he?"

"Yes, and I told him you were more of a gentleman than he was, and he
gave me a back-handed crack over the mouth."

"And what did you do--hit him back?"

"Not with my fist. With my tongue. Called him a nigger. That hits him
hardest, for he's always fancying people think there's black blood in
his veins, though, of course, there isn't, and it wouldn't matter if
there were, if he was a good fellow. Let's get on. Where's the lane?"

"Just down there," said Vane; and they reached it directly after, but
there were no signs of the gipsies, and Vane said nothing about them
then, feeling that he must have been mistaken about their intentions,
which could only have been to beg.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

TWO BUSY DAYS.

It is curious to study the different things which please boys.

Anything less likely to form a fortnight's amusement for a lad than the
iron-pipes, crooks, bends, elbows, syphons and boiler delivered by
waggon from the nearest railway, it would be hard to conceive. But to
Vane they were a source of endless delight, and it thoroughly puzzled
him to find Bruff, the gardener, muttering and grumbling about their
weight.

"It arn't gardener's work, sir, that's why I grumbled," said the man.
"My work's flowers and vegetables and sech. I arn't used to such jobs
as that."

"Why, what difference does it make?" cried Vane.

"A deal, sir. Don't seem respectful to a man whose dooty's flowers and
vegetables and sech, to set him hauling and heaving a lot o' iron-pipes
just got down for your pranks."

"Well, of all the ungrateful, grumbling fellows!" cried Vane. "Isn't it
to save you from coming up here on cold, frosty nights to stoke the
fire?"

"Nay, bud it wean't," said Bruff, with a grin. "Look here, Mester Vane,
I've sin too many of your contraptions not to know better. You're going
to have the greenhouse pulled all to pieces, and the wall half knocked
down to try your bits o' tricks, and less than a month they'll all have
to be pulled out again, and a plain, good, old English flue 'll have to
be put up as ought to be done now."

"You're a stubborn old stick-in-the-way, Bruff. Why, if you could have
done as you liked, there would never have been any railwa