"Nonsense! It was only a dagger of the mind, such as Baird talks about," answered Shuffles, as he crawled towards the peach tree. "Come, Monroe, be quick, and fill your pockets."
This peach tree was a choice variety, in whose cultivation the owner had been making an elaborate experiment. Mr. Lowington had watched it and nursed it with the most assiduous care, and now it bore about a dozen remarkably large and beautiful peaches. They were not quite ripe enough to be gathered, but Shuffles was confident that they would "mellow" in his trunk as well as on the tree. The experiment of the cultivator had been a success, and he had already prepared, with much care and labor, a paper explanatory of the process, which he intended to read before the Pomological Society, exhibiting the fruit as the evidence of the practicability of his method. To Mr. Lowington, therefore, the peaches had a value far beyond their intrinsic worth.
Shuffles gathered a couple of the peaches, and urged his companion to use all possible haste in stripping the tree of its rich burden.
"Hallo, there! What are you about?" shouted some one, who hastened to make his presence known to the plunderers.
Monroe began to retreat.
"Hold on!" interposed Shuffles. "It's no one but Harry Martyn."
"He can tell of us just as well as anybody else."
"If he does, he will catch it."
"What are you doing?" demanded Harry Martyn,—who was a nephew of Mr. Lowington, and lived with him,—as he crossed the rustic bridge that spanned the brook.
"Don't you see what I'm doing?" replied Shuffles, with an impudent coolness which confounded Harry.