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There Dick's old nurse shrunk up to him, for the news went
like wildfire over Naseby House, and timidly expressed a hope
that there was nothing much amiss with the young master.
'I'll pull him through,' the Squire said grimly, as though he
meant to pull him through a threshing-mill; 'I'll save him
from this gang; God help him with the next! He has a taste
for low company, and no natural affections to steady him.
His father was no society for him; he must go fuddling with a
Dutchman, Nance, and now he's caught. Let us pray he'll take
the lesson,' he added more gravely, 'but youth is here to
make troubles, and age to pull them out again.'
Nance whimpered and recalled several episodes of Dick's
childhood, which moved Mr. Naseby to blow his nose and shake
her hard by the hand; and then, the horse arriving
opportunely, to get himself without delay into the saddle and
canter off.
He rode straight, hot spur, to Thymebury, where, as was to be
expected, he could glean no tidings of the runaways. They
had not been seen at the George; they had not been seen at
the station. The shadow darkened on Mr. Naseby's face; the
junction did not occur to him; his last hope was for Van
Tromp's cottage; thither he bade George guide him, and
thither he followed, nursing grief, anxiety, and indignation
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