"Here, Myrrh," said Winnie, laughing, and pushing one of the heavy baskets, "help me to give it a shove, and we'll teach them not to crow before they're out of the bush. Hurrah, there it goes! What do you think of that, Mr. Bland?" she cried triumphantly, as with the help of a hearty push from Bobbo and Murtagh the basket toppled over into the river, and a bushel of rosy-cheeked apples bobbed up and down in the rapid current. Then, without waiting for any answer from indignant Bland, the children all ran away, leaving him to finish loading his cart, and to go to Mr. Plunkett with another complaint of their unruliness.
"What a pity I did it, though, Myrrh! I'm very sorry," said Winnie, with a queer twinkle in her eyes, as they stopped on the hall-door steps.
"I'd like to see Mr. Plunkett's face when Bland tells him," said Bobbo, laughing. "Why, we took more apples that way than we'd have taken in two months just for eating!"
"I'm sorry all the same," returned Winnie, laughing in spite of herself.
"You don't look very bad," answered Murtagh. "Still, if you want to cry, I'll run and get you a pocket-handkerchief."
Just then they overheard Nessa's voice through the open drawing-room door, saying: "Have you asked Master Murtagh? He might possibly know what has become of them."
"Master Murtagh's not far off, and if it's anything important, I've no objection to go and ask his opinion," exclaimed Murtagh, confronting Mrs. Donegan as she made her appearance through a doorway.
"'Deed, Master Murtagh," returned Donnie, "it's no matter for joking. The only two decent shirts you have in the world have gone clean out of your linen drawer. I've hunted for them high and low, and you'll have to go to church to-morrow without a rag to your back."
Murtagh and Winnie burst out laughing, and Bobbo called out, "It wasn't your shirts she had, was it?"
"Yes," ejaculated Winnie, through her laughter. "Oh, Donnie, for goodness' sake, don't look so funny; you'll kill me with laughing. Look here," she continued, "you needn't look so astonished; she wanted them a great deal worse than Murtagh, and she hadn't got any money to buy some."