"On the other hand," pursued the major, "I believe that if you can avoid arrest for a time, and proper influence is brought to bear, the matter may be hushed up. Therefore I advise you to keep out of the way for a time, and if possible leave the country."
"That was our intention, sir," I rejoined. "We are going up to London to enlist."
"You need not go to London, my boy," said Major Warrington. "I am both able and willing to assist you, and my proposal is that you and Symes should accompany me to the Peninsula. Now what say you to that?"
"Can such an arrangement be made?" I exclaimed half incredulously.
"Certainly it can," was the reply, "otherwise I should not have made the offer. I am in command of the drafts going out in the _Morning Star_, and nobody will raise any objection if I choose to take a couple of likely recruits with me. The question is--are you willing to come?"
"Indeed I am, Major Warrington!" I answered joyfully. "Thank you most heartily for the offer; you are truly 'a friend in need'!"
"And the lad Symes--will he care to go on active service?"
"Then that point is settled," said the major. "Symes will enlist in the 14th, and you shall join us as a gentleman volunteer; the colonel will, I am sure, accept you on my recommendation. Before we embark," he continued, "I will write to your father, explaining how I chanced to fall in with you, and my reasons for advising you to take this step. You, too, must send him a dutiful letter, giving full particulars of the _fracas_ at Charfield, and stating your reasons for supposing that your tutor and the constable laid a trap for you."
"William Herd promised to tell my father everything, sir," I interposed; "but, of course, I will write as you suggest."
"I shall also send a full account of the case to Lord Buckland, and beg him to use all his influence to get the affair hushed up," the major went on. "No doubt his friendship with Mr. Wilmot will induce him to do all he can; but the fact of your having rendered me so great a service, at the risk of your life, will make him doubly anxious to help you. I feel pretty confident that the matter will be satisfactorily settled, and in a few months you will be able to return home without fear."