naturally go together. But we will put aside the payment till you
tell me what is to be the service. And first, whither am I to drive
you? We are coming to a place where three roads meet; which of the
three shall I take?"

"Oh, I don't know; there is a finger-post. I want to get to,--but it
is a secret; you'll not betray me? Promise,--swear."

"I don't swear except when I am in a passion, which, I am sorry to
say, is very seldom; and I don't promise till I know what I promise;
neither do I go on driving runaway boys in other men's gigs unless I
know that I am taking them to a safe place, where their papas and
mammas can get at them."

"I have no papa, no mamma," said the boy, dolefully and with quivering
lips.

"Poor boy! I suppose that burly brute is your schoolmaster, and you
are running away home for fear of a flogging."

The boy burst out laughing; a pretty, silvery, merry laugh: it
thrilled through Kenelm Chillingly. "No, he would not flog me: he is
not a schoolmaster; he is worse than that."

"Is it possible? What is he?"

"An uncle."

"Hum! uncles are proverbial for cruelty; were so in the classical
days, and Richard III. was the only scholar in his family."