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Updated: May 7, 2025
How do you think your father and mother would fancy seeing you reading the book you had yesterday, or coming out of Ballhatchet's with a bottle of spirits, called by a false name?" Larkins pinched his fingers; home was a string that could touch him, but it seemed beneath him to own it. At that moment a carriage approached, the boy's whole face lighted up, and he jumped forward.
"August," said Norman, as they were coming home from school one evening, "did I see you coming over the bridge?" Tom would not answer. "So you have been at Ballhatchet's gate? I can't think what could take you there. If you want tarts, I am sure poor old Betty's are just as good. What made you go there?" "Nothing," said Tom.
The whole of the transactions with Ballhatchet, and Norman's part in them, had been explained, as well as the true history of the affray in Randall's Alley how Norman had dispersed the boys, how they had again collected, and, with the full concurrence of Harvey Anderson, renewed the mischief, how the Andersons had refused to bear witness in his favour, and how Ballhatchet's ill-will had kept back the evidence which would have cleared him.
A little private discussion ensued between Harry and Hector on the merits of the cakes at Ballhatchet's gate, and old Nelly's pies, which led the doctor to mourn over the loss of the tarts of the cranberries, that used to grow on Cocksmoor, before it was inhabited, and to be the delight of the scholars of Stoneborough, when he was one of them and then to enchant the boys by relations of ancient exploits, especially his friend Spencer climbing up, and engraving a name on the top of the market cross, now no more swept away by the Town Council in a fit of improvement, which had for the last twenty years enraged the doctor at every remembrance of it.
"I laid Hill half-a-crown that you would not see me when you were mooning over your verses!" "Well, I have seen you. And now " "Come, you would not thrash a fellow when you have just lost him half-a-crown! Single misfortunes never come alone, they say; so there's my money and my credit gone, to say nothing of Ballhatchet's ginger-beer!"
"And did not he?" exclaimed Dr. May. "He did not in so many words accuse me of of but he told me he had serious charges brought against me Mr. Harrison had seen me at Ballhatchet's, setting an example of disregard to rules and, again, Mr. Harrison saw me coming in at a late hour last night. 'I know he did, I said, and I explained where I had been, and they asked for proofs!
"I'm in no scrape," said Tom, so doggedly, that Norman lost patience, and spoke with more displeasure. "You will be then, if you go out of bounds, and run Anderson's errands, and shirk work. You'd better take care. It is my place to keep order, and I can't let you off for being my brother; so remember, if I catch you going to Ballhatchet's again, you may make sure of a licking."
"But you would mind," broke in the boy passionately, "if you knew what Anderson junior and Axworthy say! They say it serves you right, and they were going to send me to old Ballhatchet's to get some of his stuff to drink confusion to the mouth of June, and all pragmatical meddlers; and when I said I could not go, they vowed if I did not, I should eat the corks for them!
When Edward Anderson, Axworthy, and their set, broke through rules, it was with the understanding that the second boy in the school would support them, if he durst. The summer and the cricket season brought the battle of Ballhatchet's house to issue.
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