‘Oh,’ said Betsey, ‘I’ll warrant he is off to the merry orchard.’
‘I hope not,’ said Mrs. King gravely.
‘He never would,’ said Ellen, in anger.
‘Ah, well, I always said I didn’t see no harm in a lad getting a bit of pleasure.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Mrs. King. ‘Harold knows I would not stint him in the fruit nor in the pleasure, but I should be much vexed if he could go out on a Sunday, buying and selling, among such a lot as meet at that orchard.’
‘Well, I’m sure I don’t know when poor folks is to have a holiday if not on a Sunday, and the poor boy must be terrible moped with his brother so ill.’
‘Not doing thine own pleasure on My holy day,’ thought Ellen, but she did not say it, for her mother could not bear for texts to be quoted at people. But her heart was very heavy; and when she went up with some tea to Alfred, she looked from the window to see whether, as she hoped, Harold might be in Paul’s hay-loft, preferring going without his tea to being teased by Betsey. Paul sat in his loft, with his Bible on his knee, and his head on Cæsar’s neck.
‘Alfred,’ said Ellen, ‘do you know where Harold is? Sure he is not gone to the merry orchard?’
‘Is not he come home?’ said Alfred. ‘Oh, then he is! He is gone to the merry orchard, breaking Sunday with Dick Royston! And by-and-by he’ll be ill, and die, and be as miserable as I am!’ And Alfred cried as Ellen had never seen him cry.