This was indeed a home question! What should I say? Should I follow Harry Symes's advice, and make a clean breast of everything to the major? I hesitated; then—for I could not bring myself to deny my father—I said, almost in a whisper, "I am Mr. Wilmot's son." And, unable to control my emotion, I burst into tears.
"My dear boy!" exclaimed Major Warrington, laying his hand on my arm, "what is wrong with you? I fear you have got into some trouble—is it not so?"
"Into very great trouble, sir; but I—I dare not tell you what it is."
"Nonsense, Wilmot," he rejoined; "do not be foolish. Tell everything without reserve, and if it is in my power to help you I will. Anyhow, you may be sure that I will respect your confidence. Remember, my dear boy," he went on, seeing that I hesitated, "I am under great obligations to you and your servant, and it will be a pleasure to me to assist or advise you. Come! confide in me without fear."
So, touched by his kind manner and evident desire to help me, I told the whole story.
"Umph! You and Harry Symes are certainly in an awkward scrape," said Major Warrington, when I had finished; "but I do not consider you have done anything disgraceful."
"Thank you for saying that, sir," I murmured.
"You have acted foolishly—very foolishly!—by walking, almost with your eyes open, into the trap set for you by those scoundrels the tutor and his confederate," the major went on; "and thereby have committed a serious offence against the law. As for the tutor and parish-constable," he added, "their conduct was most disgraceful, and they richly deserve punishment, in addition to the rough handling they got from you."
"But, sir, I fear the constable was killed in the scuffle," I put in, thinking he might not have understood me. "His assistant, William Herd, said——"