Bit by bit he sobbed forth his story in answer to the rector's questions, and finally raising his swollen eyelids to the kind face he said: "If so be as mother was to know I wur sent to prison it 'ud break her 'art." "Tell me," said the rector, "have your parents lived long at Green Highlands? Are they well-known there?" "Father, he's lived there all his life," said Frank; "and granther, he used to live there too. Father can do a better day's work nor any man in Danecross," he added with conscious pride. "Ah!" said the rector, "it's a fine thing to be a good workman, and to have earned a good name, isn't it?" Frank hung his head. "But it isn't done by tramping about the country with bad companions. A good name's a precious thing, and like all precious things it's got by trouble and labour. It's the best thing a father can hand down to his son. When he begins life, men say, `He's Frank Darvell's son, he comes of a good stock;' and so the `good name' his father earned is of great use to him. But he can't live on that; he has to make one of his own too, so that he can hand it on to _his_ sons and daughters and say, `There's my father's name, I've never disgraced it; now it's your turn to use it well.' But suppose that the son doesn't value his father's good name. Suppose that he chooses an idle good-for-nothing life and his own pleasure, rather than to work hard and live honestly; what happens then? Why, then, men soon leave off trusting him, and say, `He's not the man his father was;' and so the name of Darvell, which used to be so honoured and respected, comes to be connected with evil things. Then, perhaps too late, the son finds that `a good name is more to be desired than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.' But he has thrown away the good name and the loving favour too, for he has drifted away from his old friends and companions. He can _never_ get back to where he started from." The solemn monotonous voice--for the rector had dropped unconsciously into his sermon tones--and the emphasis on the last words completed Frank's misery of spirit. Clasping his hands, he fell on his knees and said imploringly: "Let me go home, sir. Let me go back. I'd be proper glad to see 'em all again." "Whom would you like to see again?" asked the rector kindly. "There's mother first," said Frank, "and father on Sundays, and then Schoolmaster, and Jack Gunn, and little Phoebe Redrup." "My little lad," said the rector, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, "you see there's no place like home. Home, where people know us and love us in spite of our faults. I think you won't want to run away again?" "Niver no more," sobbed Frank.