clothes were soaked
from head to foot, and smeared with the red mud.

"I will pay you out for this, you see if I don't," Richard gasped
hoarsely.

"What! have you had enough of it?" James said scornfully. "I thought
you weren't any good. A fellow who would bully a little girl is sure to
be a coward."

Richard moved as if he would renew the fight, but he thought better of
it, and with a furious exclamation hurried away towards the Hall.

James, without paying any further heed to him, waded after the boat,
and having recovered it, walked off towards the child, who, on seeing
his opponent had moved off, was running down to meet him.

"Here is the boat, Aggie," he said. "There is no great harm done, only
the mast and yard broken. I can easily put you in fresh ones;" but the
child paid no attention to the boat.

"He is a wicked bad boy, Jim; and did he hurt you?"

"Oh, no, he didn't hurt me, Aggie, at least nothing to speak of. I hurt
him a good deal more. I paid him out well for breaking your boat, and
pushing you down, the cowardly brute!"

"Only look, Jim," she said, holding out her frock. "What will she say?"

James laughed.

"Mother won't say anything," he said. "She is accustomed to my coming
in all muddy."

"But she said 'Keep your frock clean,' and it's not clean," Aggie said
in dismay.

"Yes, but that is not your fault, little one. I will make it all right
with her, don't you fret. Come on, we had better go home and change it
as soon as possible."

They passed close by the two fishermen on their way.

"You gave it to the young squire finely, Master Walsham," one of them
said, "and served him right, too. We chanced to be looking at the
moment, and saw it all. He is a bad un, he is, by what they say up at
the Hall. I heard one of the grooms talking last night down at the
'Ship,' and a nice character he gave him. This thrashing may do him
some good; and look you, Master Walsham, if he makes a complaint to the
squire, and it's likely enough he will get up a fine story of how it
came about--the groom said he could lie like King Pharaoh--you just
send word to me, and me and Bill will go up to the squire, and tell him
the truth of the matter."

Mrs. Walsham felt somewhat alarmed when her son told her what had
happened, for the squire was a great man at Sidmouth, a magistrate, and
the owner of the greater part of the place as well as of the land
around it; and although Mrs. Walsham did not hold the same