"Yes; but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair. But if I go halves, I'll go 'em fair—only I wouldn't be a greedy."
With this Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a stone with a "hoigh!" to Yap, who had also been looking on wistfully while the jam puff vanished.
Maggie sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to misery. She would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice; but she would have gone without it many times over sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with her.
And he had said he wouldn't have it; and she ate it without thinking. How could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; then she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer near her, nor in the paddock behind the rickyard. Where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him?
Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree, where she could see far away towards the Floss. There was Tom in the distance; but her heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great river, and that he had another companion besides Yap—naughty Bob Jakin, whose task of frightening the birds was just now at a standstill.
It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it be otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was a swallow's, or a tom-tit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all the wasps' nests, and could set all sorts of traps; he could climb the trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of finding hedgehogs and stoats; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to have days of grief because Tom had gone off with Bob.
Well, there was no help for it. He was gone now, and Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the holly, or wander lonely by the hedgerow, nursing her grief.