‘He knows a deal,’ said Tom reassured, for he had some doubts whether Harrison major’s opinions would have been received with the deference they deserved. ‘He’s the biggest fellow in the school, though he’s not very swell in learning. But he doesn’t mind. He says fellows that are to have plenty of money don’t want it.’ ‘That’s a frequent opinion of people in trade,’ said Beaufort. ‘I would not put too much faith in it if I were you.’ ‘Eh?’ cried Tom, opening his big light eyes under his dark brows more widely than ever, and staring up into his stepfather’s face. ‘You will have plenty of money, I suppose?’ said Beaufort calmly. ‘Oh, don’t you know? I’ll be one of the richest fellows in Scotland,’ cried the boy. ‘Who told you that, Tom?’ ‘I don’t know. I can’t tell you. I know it, that’s all. It was perhaps only nurse,’ he added with reluctance; ‘but she’s been to my place, and she knows all about it. You can ask her if you haven’t heard.’ ‘So you have got a place besides being so rich?’ Beaufort said, in calm interrogation, without surprise. Tom was very much embarrassed by this questioning. He stared at his stepfather more than ever. ‘Hasn’t mother told you? I thought she told you everything.’ ‘So did I. But all this about your place I never heard. Let’s have the rest of it, Tom.’ ‘Oh, I don’t know that there’s much more,’ said the boy. ‘It’s a great big place with a high tower, and a flag flying when I’m at home--like the Queen--and acres upon acres in the park. It was my father’s, don’t you know? and now it’s mine.’ ‘How old are you, Master Tom?’ ‘Eleven in April,’ said Tom, promptly. ‘Then it will be ten years before you have anything to say to your place, as you call it. I’ve seen your place, Tom. It is not so very much of a place; as for a flag, you know we might mount a flag at Easton if we liked and nobody would mind.’ Tom’s black brows had gathered, and his eyes looked with that fierceness mingled with fear which belongs to childhood, into his stepfather’s face. He was very wroth to have his pretensions thus made light of, but the habitual faith of his age alarmed him with a sense that it might be true. ‘We’ll mount one this afternoon,’ his tormentor said; ‘it will be fun for you and me taking it down when your mother goes out for her drive, and hoisting it again when she comes back. She deserves a flag better than you do, don’t you think? Almost as well as the Queen. The only danger is that the country people might take Easton for the Beaufort Arms, and want to come in and drink beer. What do you think?’ ‘I say, Beau, are you in real earnest about a flag?’ ‘To be sure. I don’t know what you have on yours at the Towers, but we have a famous blazon on the Beaufort side. We’ll get a square of silk from your mother, and paint it as soon as we go in. I forget what your arms are, Tom?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said the boy, humbly. ‘I never heard anything about them. I didn’t know you had arms on a flag.’