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But in all his story he would tell me nothing about his home, or his relatives, so that as to knowing who my friend Smith was, or where he came from, I went back that afternoon to Brownstroke as much in the dark as ever. But I had found him! The two days which followed my eventful expedition to London were among the most anxious I ever spent.
"Oh, Brownstroke, if you like; or your home. Let's turn up, you know, and give them a jolly surprise." Smith's face clouded over as he said, hurriedly, "I say, it's time to be going back, or we shall get caught." This was an effectual damper to any idea of flight, and we quickly turned back once more to Stonebridge House.
At length the driver turned round, and said we should come in sight of Stonebridge at the next turn of the road. My spirits began to sink for the first time. Dismal and all as Brownstroke had been, how did I know I should not be happier there, after all, than at this strange new place, where I knew no one? I wished the driver wouldn't go so fast.
I thought the Henniker and Mrs Nash were the only lady friends you ever had? Where was it?" "At Packworth, of all places," I said. "It was that day I went over to try and find you out just before we came up to London, you know. I was walking back to Brownstroke, and met the pony bolting down the road." Jack seemed suddenly very much interested. "What sort of little girl was it?" he asked.
I went to the post-office where my two letters had been addressed, the one I wrote a year ago, just after Jack's expulsion, and the other written last week from Brownstroke. "Have you any letters addressed to `J'?" I asked. The clerk fumbled over the contents of a pigeon-hole, from which he presently drew out my last letter and gave it to me.
He was saying something about "not wanting to shield me," and "locking-up," the drift of which I afterwards slowly gathered, when the village policeman we only had one at Brownstroke addressing my uncle as "your honour," said he would look in in the morning for further orders.
Nothing ever does when a fellow wants it. So I turned tail, and faced the prospect of a solitary ten-mile walk back to Brownstroke. I felt decidedly down. This expedition to Packworth had been a favourite dream of mine for many months past, and somehow I had never anticipated there would be much difficulty, could I once get there, in discovering my friend Smith.
And for all I know I might be at Jenny Wren's school still if a tremendous event hadn't happened in our village, which utterly upset the oldest established customs of Brownstroke. We grammar-school boys never "hit" it exactly with the other town boys. Either they were jealous of us or we were jealous of them. I don't know, but we hated the town boys, and they hated us.
I tried to think of other things of books I had read, of stories I had heard, of places I had seen, of Stonebridge House, of Brownstroke but no, the thought of my pitiful career in London, my debts, my evil acquaintances, my treachery to my friend, would come and come and come, and drive out all else.
The fact is, that I, with no cheerier home than Brownstroke to look back on, became desperately homesick before three months in London were over; and but for my friend Smith, I might have deserted entirely. However, Smith, solemn as he was, wouldn't let me get quite desperate.
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