The farmer knew she was unfair, knew the orphan a good boy and a diligent, knew there was nothing against him but the antipathy of his wife. But, annoyed with her injustice, he was powerless to change her heart. Since the boy came to live with them, he had had no pleasure in his wife’s society. She had always been moody and dissatisfied, but since then had been unbearable. Constantly irritated with and by her because of Clare, he had begun to regard him as the destroyer of his peace, and to feel a grudge against him. He sat smouldering with bodiless rage, and said nothing. Clare too was silent,--for what could he say? Where is the wisdom that can answer hatred? He carried to his friend Jonathan a heart heavy and perplexed. “Why does she hate me so, Jonathan?” he murmured. The big horse kissed his head all over, but made him no other answer. Chapter XIII. CLARE THE VAGABOND. The next morning Clare happened to do something not altogether to the farmer’s mind. It was a matter of no consequence--only cleaning that side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, and then stand bewildered. “What do you mean by staring that way?” cried the farmer, annoyed with himself and seeking justification in his own eyes. “Am I not to box your ears when I choose?” And with that he gave him another blow. Then first it dawned on Clare that he was not wanted, that he was no good to anybody. He threw down his scraper, and ran from the cow-house; ran straight from the farm to the lane, and from the lane to the high road. Buffets from the hand of his only friend, and the sudden sense of loneliness they caused, for the moment bereft Clare of purpose. It was as if his legs had run away with him, and he had unconsciously submitted to their abduction. At the mouth of the lane, where it opened on the high road, he ran against Tommy turning the corner, eager to find him. The eyes of the small human monkey were swollen with weeping; his nose was bleeding, and in size and shape scarce recognizable as a nose. At the sight, the consciousness of his protectorate awoke in Clare, and he stopped, unable to speak, but not unable to listen. Tommy blubbered out a confused, half-inarticulate something about “granny and the other devil,” who between them had all but killed him. “What can I do?” said Clare, his heart sinking with the sense of having no help in him. Tommy was ready to answer the question. He had been hatching vengeance all the way. Eagerly came his proposition--that they should, in their turn, lie in ambush for Simpson, and knock his crutch from under him. That done, Clare should belabour him with it, while he ran like the wind and set his grandmother’s house on fire. “She’ll be drunk in bed, an’ she’ll be burned to death!” cried Tommy. “Then we’ll mizzle!”