Altogether, his conscience pricked him a good deal, and when people's consciences prick them, sometimes they get angry with other people, which is very silly, and only makes matters worse.
"What have you been doing all this time?" said he.
"All this five minutes?" said the oldest boy, mischievously; for Gardener was only to be away five minutes, and he had staid a full hour. Also, when he fumbled in his pocket for the children's lunch—to stop their tongues, perhaps—he found it was not there.
They set up a great outcry; for, in spite of the cake, they could have eaten a little more. Indeed, the frost had such an effect upon all their appetites, that they felt not unlike that celebrated gentleman of whom it is told that
"He ate a cow, and ate a calf,
He ate an ox, and ate a half;
He ate a church, he ate the steeple,
He ate the priest, and all the people,
And said he hadn't had enough then."
"We're so hungry, so very hungry! Couldn't you go back again and fetch us some dinner?" cried they, entreatingly.
"Not I, indeed. You may go back to dinner yourselves. You shall, indeed, for I want my dinner too. Two hours is plenty long enough to stop on the ice."
"It isn't two hours—it's only one."
"Well, one will do better than more. You're all right now—and you might soon tumble in, or break your legs on the slide. So come away home."
It wasn't kind of Gardener, and I don't wonder the children felt it hard; indeed, the eldest boy resisted stoutly.