"I do not know where he went," said I, which was the truth.

He said nothing, but hid his face in his arms over the rail of the bower.
At length he looked up at me fiercely.

"If you ever tell this, I will kill you," he cried. "Do you hear?"

That made me angry.

"Yes, I hear," I said. "But I am not afraid of you."

He was at me in an instant, knocking me to the floor, so that the breath
went out of me, and was pounding me vigorously ere I recovered from the
shock and astonishment of it and began to defend myself. He was taller
than I, and wiry, but not so rugged. Yet there was a look about him that
was far beyond his strength. A look that meant, NEVER SAY DIE.
Curiously, even as I fought desperately I compared him with that other
lad I had known, Andy Jackson. And this one, though not so powerful,
frightened me the more in his relentlessness.

Perhaps we should have been fighting still had not some one pulled us
apart, and when my vision cleared I saw Nick, struggling and kicking,
held tightly in the hands of the clergyman. And it was all that
gentleman could do to hold him. I am sure it was quite five minutes
before he forced the lad, exhausted, on to the seat. And then there was
a defiance about his nostrils that showed he was undefeated. The
clergyman, still holding him with one hand, took out his handkerchief
with the other and wiped his brow.

I expected a scolding and a sermon. To my amazement the clergyman said