This is the way of the world, and as yet there
has been no help found for it.
Ernest could only see what he gathered from the cook, namely, that
his favourite, Ellen, was being turned adrift with a matter of three
pounds in her pocket, to go she knew not where, and to do she knew not
what, and that she had said she should hang or drown herself, which
the boy implicitly believed she would.
With greater promptitude than he had shown yet, he reckoned up his
money and found he had two shillings and threepence at his command;
there was his knife which might sell for a shilling, and there was the
silver watch his Aunt Alethea had given him shortly before she died.
The carriage had been gone now a full quarter of an hour, and it
must have got some distance ahead, but he would do his best to catch
it up, and there were short cuts which would perhaps give him a
chance. He was off at once, and from the top of the hill just past the
Rectory paddock he could see the carriage, looking very small, on a
bit of road which showed perhaps a mile and a half in front of him.
One of the most popular amusements at Roughborough was an
institution called "the hounds"- more commonly known elsewhere as
"hare and hounds," but in this case the hare was a couple of boys
who were called foxes, and boys are so particular about correctness of
nomenclature where their sports are concerned that I dare not say they
played "hare and hounds"; these were "the hounds," and that was all.
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