There, too, on the table were mementos of that first day of his
teaching,--the mirror spectacles with which he had seen at once
every corner of the schoolroom, the sling-shot and bar of iron he
had taken from the woodsman, Leblanc.
One evening of his first week at Hillsborough that term, Darrel
came to sit with him a while.
"An' what are these?" said the tinker, at length, his hand upon the
shot and iron.
"I do not know."
"Dear boy," said Darrel, "they're from the kit of a burglar, an'
how came they here?"
"I took them from Louis Leblanc," said the young man, who then told
of his adventure that night.
"Louis Leblanc!" exclaimed Darrel. "The scamp an' his family have
cleared out."
The tinker turned quickly, his hand upon the wrist of the young man.
"These things are not for thee to have," he whispered. "Had ye no
thought o' the danger?"
Trove began to change colour.
"I can prove how I came by them," he stammered.
"What is thy proof?" Darrel whispered again.
"There are Leblanc's wife and daughter."
"Ah, where are they? There be many would like to know."
The young man thought a moment.
"Well, Tunk Hosely, there at Mrs. Vaughn's."
"Tunk Hosely!" exclaimed the tinker, with a look that seemed to
say, "God save the mark! An' would they believe him, think?"
Trove began to look troubled as Darrel left him.
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