Forgotten Tales of Long Ago

by E. V. Lucas

'You did, ma'am,' I replied; 'and I would do anything I could to serve you. I would not rob nor injure you upon any account. And I cannot rob Mr. Freeman, for he gave me employment when I had none, and he pays me six shillings a week. How ungrateful I should be if I could rob him. I cannot do it; indeed, I cannot.'

'Take your supper and go to bed,' said Mrs. Davis. 'I cannot argue with you, but I know that you are a very foolish child.'

I did as I was ordered, and retired to my loft, and happy should I have been if this disagreeable business ended there, but a few evenings after, just before we left the gardens, I went to put a knife into a basket that belonged to Susan, and, to my surprise and grief, found that it concealed five fine peaches in it. I trembled so when I saw them that I could scarcely cover them over again, and soon after, as we were walking home, with great civility and humility I ventured to remonstrate with her on the great impropriety, and indeed danger, of her robbing the garden.

'What business have you to look into my basket?' said she. 'If you do not choose to take a little fruit yourself you have no right to meddle with them that do; however, I shall tell mother, and I hope she'll turn you into the wide world again as you were when you came to us.'

When we arrived at home Mr. Davis was in the house, and Susan did not choose to say anything till he went out; she then opened the basket, showed the peaches to her mother, and made a heavy complaint of my impertinence in telling her she ought not to take them, that it was stealing, and would, if discovered, most likely be the cause of her being discharged from the garden.

Mrs. Davis was in such a passion that she struck me several times, and said I should be the cause of her children being turned out of work.

'Don't say me, mother,' said Tommy, 'for I shall not steal. The Catechism says I am to keep my hands from picking and stealing, and father says if I steal I shall come to be hanged, so that you may depend upon it I shall not steal, and I wish sisters would not.'

'You are a little blockhead,' replied his mother; 'and as for Lady Anne, if she does not mind what she is about I shall turn her out of doors, and she may go a-begging.'

The peaches were then put out of sight. Soon after this Mr. Davis came in; we had our supper, and at ten o'clock went to bed.

In the course of the following day the peaches were missed at the garden, for Mr. Freeman had counted the fruit on some of the principal trees, and this day he found that three peaches had been taken from one tree and two from another. We were all questioned about it, and all our baskets were examined, but as all denied the theft and no fruit could be found, no one could be charged with it. Mr. Freeman was very angry on this occasion, as he well might, and ordered Mr. Joseph to keep a strict watch over all the workpeople, as he was determined to make an example of whoever should be detected robbing him, let it be who it might. I was anxious to know what the children did with the fruit, as I never saw them eating it, and I soon found that when their father was out of the house (for they did not dare to let him know of their ill practices) the fruit was exposed in the window for sale. Their father having a small garden, in which were a few fruit trees, served as an excuse for all the fruit they had to sell, and thus they contrived to deceive their father and rob their master.