"Oh, yes, for her sake I'd like to be friends, of course, and I hope
you'll forget all about that wretched quarrel."
"Indeed I will," cried Charlie; "and don't let us say any more about it.
I am ever so much happier now, and it was so good of you to come to me
and make it up."
"Well," said Tom loftily, "you know it's no use for two fellows to be at
loggerheads when it can be helped, and I dare say we shall get on all
the better now. How are you going on in the second?"
Whereupon Charlie launched into a lengthy and animated account of his
experiences, to which Tom pretended to listen, but scarcely heard a
word.
"So you are fond of fishing?" he said, casually, after the boy had
mentioned something on that subject.
"Ain't I, though?" cried Charlie, now quite happy, and his old self
again. "I say, Tom Drift, would you like to see the new lance-wood top
I've got to my rod? It's a stunner, I can tell you. I'll lend it you,
you know, any time you like."
"Have you caught much since you were here!" asked Tom, anxious to get
this hateful business over.
"No. You know the brook here isn't a good one for fish, and I don't
know anywhere else near."
"Well, I'll tell you what," said Tom, as if the idea had then for the
first time occurred to him. "Suppose we go off for a regular good day
on Saturday? It's a holiday, you know, and we could go and try up the
Sharle, near Gurley. There's lots of trout there, and we are certain to
have a good day."
"How jolly!" exclaimed Charlie. "It would be grand. But I say, Tom
Drift, are you sure you wouldn't mind coming? It wouldn't be a bother
to you, would it?"
"Not a bit. I like a good day's fishing. But, I say, young un, you'd
better not say anything about it to any one, or we shall have a swarm of
fellows come too, and that will spoil all the sport."
"All right," said Charlie. "I say what a day we shall have! I'll bring
my watch and knife, you know, and some grub, and we can picnic there,
eh?"
"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 passing
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 class 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 fag 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?"