It was reported the following evening, just as the town boys turned out to go to their homes, that “old Tomkins had his fence up five times higher than before.”
“Have at him again, say I!” exclaimed Axworthy. “What business has he coming stopping up ways that were made before he was born?”
“We shall catch it from the doctor if we do,” said Edward Anderson, “He looked in no end of a rage yesterday when he talked about the credit of the school.”
“Who cares for the credit of the school?” said the elder Anderson; “we are out of the school now--we are townsmen--Stoneborough boys--citizens not bound to submit to injustice. No, no, the old rogue knew it would not stand if it was brought into court, so he brings down old Hoxton on us instead--a dirty trick he deserves to be punished for.”
And there was a general shout and yell in reply.
“Anderson,” said Norman, “you had better not excite them again, they are ripe for mischief. It will go further than it did yesterday--don’t you see?”
Anderson could not afford to get into a scrape without May to stand before him, and rather sulkily he assented.
“It is of no use to rave about old Tomkins,” proceeded Norman, in his style of popular oratory. “If it is illegal, some one will go to law about it, and we shall have our alley again. We have shown him our mind once, and that is enough; if we let him alone now, he will see ‘tis only because we are ordered, not for his sake. It would be just putting him in the right, and maybe winning his cause for him, to use any more violence. There’s law for you, Anderson. So now no more about it--let us all go home like rational fellows. August, where’s August?”
Tom was not visible--he generally avoided going home with his brother; and Norman having seen the boys divide into two or three little parties, as their roads lay homewards, found he had an hour of light for an expedition of his own, along the bank of the river. He had taken up botany with much ardour, and sharing the study with Margaret was a great delight to both. There was a report that the rare yellow bog-bean grew in a meadow about a mile and a half up the river, and thither he was bound, extremely enjoying the summer evening walk, as the fresh dewy coolness sunk on all around, and the noises of the town were mellowed by distance, and the sun’s last beams slanted on the green meadows, and the May-flies danced, and dragon-flies darted, and fish rose or leaped high in the air, or showed their spotted sides, and opened and shut their gills, as they rested in the clear water, and the evening breeze rustled in the tall reeds, and brought fragrance from the fresh-mown hay.