The Crofton Boys

by Harriet Martineau

Holt had nothing with him either. Lamb asked the woman what there was to pay. She seemed to count and consider; and Holt told Hugh afterwards that he saw Lamb wink at her. She then said that the younger gentlemen had had the most plums and cakes. The charge was a shilling a piece for them, and sixpence for Master Lamb:—half-a-crown exactly. Hugh protested he never meant anything like this, and that he wanted part of his half-crown to buy a comb with; and he would have emptied out the cakes and fruit he had left; but the woman stopped him, saying that she never took back what she had sold. Lamb hurried him, too, declaring that their time was up; and he even thrust his finger and thumb into Hugh’s inner pocket, and took out the half-crown, which he gave to the woman. He was sure that Hugh could wait for his comb till Holt paid him, and the woman said she did not see that any more combing was wanted: the young gentleman’s hair looked so pretty as it was. She then showed them through the garden, and gave them each a marigold full-blown. She unlocked her gate, pushed them through, locked it behind them, and left them to hide their purchases as well as they could. Though the little boys stuffed their pockets till the ripest plums burst, and wetted the linings, they could not dispose of them all; and they were obliged to give away a good many.

Hugh went in search of his new friend, and drew him aside from the rest to relate his trouble. Dale wondered he had not found out Lamb before this, enough to refuse to follow his lead. Lamb would never pay a penny. He always spent the little money he had upon good things, the first day or two; and then he got what he could out of any one who was silly enough to trust him.

“But,” said Hugh, “the only thing we had to do with each other before was by my being kind to him.”

“That makes no difference,” said Dale.

“But what a bad boy he must be! To be sure, he will pay me, when he knows how much I want a comb.”

“He will tell you to buy it out of your five shillings. You let him know you had five shillings in Mrs Watson’s hands.”

“Yes; but he knows how I mean to spend that,—for presents to carry home at Christmas. But I’ll never tell him anything again. Oh! Dale! Do you really think he will never pay me?”

“He never pays anybody; that is all I know. Come,—forget it all, as fast as you can. Let us go and see if we can get any nuts.”

Hugh did not at all succeed in his endeavours to forget his adventure. The more he thought about it, the worse it seemed; and the next time he spoke to Holt, and told him to remember that he owed him a shilling, Holt said he did not know that,—he did not mean to spend a shilling; and it was clear that it was only his fear of Hugh’s speaking to Mrs Watson or the usher, that prevented his saying outright that he should not pay it. Hugh felt very hot, and bit his lip to make his voice steady when he told Dale, on the way home, that he did not believe he should ever see any part of his half-crown again. Dale thought so too; but he advised him to do nothing more than keep the two debtors up to the remembrance of their debt. If he told so powerful a person as Firth, it would be almost as much tale-telling as if he went to the master at once; and Hugh himself had no inclination to expose his folly to Phil, who was already quite sufficiently ashamed of his inexperience. So poor Hugh threw the last of his plums to some cottager’s children on the green, in his way home; and, when he set foot within bounds again, he heartily wished that this Saturday afternoon had been rainy too; for any disappointment would have been better than this scrape.

While learning his lessons for Monday, he forgot the whole matter; and then he grew merry over the great Saturday night’s washing; but after he was in bed, it flashed upon him that he should meet uncle and aunt Shaw in church to-morrow, and they would speak to Phil and him after church; and his uncle might ask after the half-crown. He determined not to expose his companions, at any rate: but his uncle would be displeased; and this thought was so sad that Hugh cried himself to sleep. His uncle and aunt were at church the next morning; and Hugh could not forget the ginger-beer, or help watching his uncle: so that, though he tried several times to attend to the sermon; he knew nothing about it when it was done. His uncle observed in the churchyard that they must have had a fine ramble the day before; but did not say anything about pocket-money. Neither did he name a day for his nephews to visit him, though he said they must come before the days grew much shorter. So Hugh thought he had got off very well thus far. In the afternoon, however, Mrs Watson, who invited him and Holt into her parlour, to look over the pictures in her great Bible, was rather surprised to find how little Hugh could tell her of the sermon, considering how much he had remembered the Sunday before. She had certainly thought that to-day’s sermon had been the simpler, and the more interesting to young people, of the two. Her conversation with Hugh did him good, however. It reminded him of his mother’s words, and of her expectations from him; and it made him resolve to bear, not only his loss, but any blame which might come upon him silently, and without betraying anybody. He had already determined, fifty times within the twenty-four hours, never to be so weakly led again, when his own mind was doubtful, as he had felt it all the time from leaving the heath to getting back to it again. He began to reckon on the Christmas holidays, when he should have five weeks at home, free from the evils of both places,—from lessons with Miss Harold, and from Crofton scrapes.