"Oh, you will, will you?" was Christopher's rejoinder, as he surveyed him with the humorous contempt which the strong so often feel for the weak of the same sex. "Well, I suppose I'll have my say in the matter, and strangely enough I'm on your grandfather's side. The clearer you keep of me the better it will be for you, my man." "That's just like grandpa all over again," protested the boy; and when it comes to that, he needn't know anything about it--he doesn't know half that I do, anyway; he blusters so about things." Christopher's gaze returned slowly from the landscape and rested inquiringly upon the youthful features before him, seeking in them some definite promise of the future. The girlish look of the mouth irritated him ludicrously, and half-forgotten words of Carraway's awoke within his memory. "Fletcher loves but one thing on this earth, and his ambition is that the boy shall be respected in the county." A Fletcher respected in the very stronghold of a Blake! He laughed aloud, and then spoke hurriedly as if to explain the surprising mirth in his outburst. "So you came to pay a visit to your nearest neighbour and are afraid your grandfather will find it out? Then you'll get a spanking, I dare say." Will blushed furiously, and stood awkwardly scraping up a pile of sand with the sole of his boot. "I'm not a baby," he blurted out at last, "and I'll go where I like, whatever he says." "He keeps a pretty close watch over you, I reckon. Perhaps he's afraid you'll become a man and step into his shoes before he knows it." "Oh, he can't find me out, all the same," said the boy slyly. "He thinks I've gone over to Mr. Morrison's now to do my Greek--he's crazy about my learning Greek, and I hate it--and, you bet your life, he'll be hopping mad if he finds I've given him the slip." "He will, will he?" remarked Christopher, and the thought appeared to afford him a peculiar satisfaction. For the first time the frown left his brow and his tone lost its insolent contempt. Then he came forward suddenly and laid his hand upon the gate. "Well, I can't waste my morning," he said. "You'd better run back home and play the piano. I'm off." "I don't play the piano--I'm not a girl," declared the boy; "and what I want is to get you to train my hounds for me. I'd like to go hunting with you to-day." "Oh, I can't be bothered with babies," sneered Christopher in reply. "You'd fall down, most likely, and scratch your knees on the briers, and then you'd run straight home to blab to Fletcher." "I won't!" cried Will angrily. "I'll never blab. He'd be too mad, I tell you, if he found it out." "Well, I don't want you anyhow, so get out of my way. You'd better look sharp after your pups or the hounds will chew them up."