136 Turnaside Cottage.

 

they’d been tracked ?—no, the other three,” for I had
started forward—“two of them in the ironworks
up ’way by Aberdare, and one in a coalpit that I
forgets the name of ; but they'd no proof agin any,
so they let ’em be, and a good riddance too. You’d
a said a coalpit was a clever hiding-place, but your
father’s been sharper even than that, and hasn’t left
not a speck to track him by. ’Twasn’t that the
gentleman wanted me for, though ; ’twas about your
letter.”

“My letter!” cried I, aghast; “why, how can
they tell who wrote it?”

Tommy was grinning in the most aggravating

way. “They couldn't,” he said, “till I swored to it.” ©

“Oh, Tommy! how could you? Iam sure—I
mean, I should think—the writing was not like
mine.”

“ Bless your heart! didn’t I know as you'd beena
leaving of it that morning as I met you? I can
smell a rat, for all my nose isn’t as big as some
people’s. So of course I knowed it must be your
writing, and swored, according to. Then one of the
gentlemen looks very knowing, and he says, ‘But
how should the boy know of it, except his father’d
been in the plot?’ he says.”

“There now !” cried I, almost ready to burst into

tears,