“What a story!” cried Cecil, who was Bonny’s champion, being his schoolmistress; “I wish your Dick was half as good a boy. He gets honester every day almost. I’ll send him to you, papa, in two seconds. I suppose you’ll speak to him at the side-door.”
At a nod from her father, away she ran, while Madge followed slowly to help in the search; and finding that the boy had left the house, they took different paths in the garden to seek him, or overtake him on his homeward way. In a few moments Cecil, as she passed some laurels, held up her hand to recall her sister, and crossed the grass towards her very softly, with finger on lip and a mysterious look.
“Hush! and come here very quietly,” she whispered; “I’ll show you something as good as a play.” Then the two girls peeped through the laurel-bush, and watched with great interest what was going on.
In an alley of the kitchen-garden sat Bonny upon an old sea-kale pot, clad in his red coat and white breeches, and deeply meditating. Before him, upon an espalier tree, hung a tempting and beautiful apple, a scarlet pearmain, with its sleek sides glistening in the slant of the sunbeams.
“I’ll lay you a shilling he steals it,” Madge whispered into the ear of her sister. “Done,” replied Cecil, with her hand before her mouth. Meanwhile Bonny was giving them the benefit of his train of reasoning. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes very bright, and his forehead a field of perplexity.
“They’s all agrubbing in the house,” he reflected; “and they ain’t been and offered me a bit to-day. There’s ever so many more on the tree; and they locked up the scullery cupboard; and one on ’em called me a little warmint; and they tuck the key out of the beertap.”
With all these wrongs upward, he stretched forth his hand, and pretty Cecil trembled for her shilling, shillings being very scarce with her. But the boy, without quite having touched the apple, drew back his hand; and that withdrawal perhaps was the turning-point of his life.
“He gived me all this,” he said, looking at his sleeve; “and all on ’em stitched it up for me; and they lets me go in and out without watching; and twice I’se been out with him, shutting! I ’ont, I ’ont. And them coorse red apples seldom be worth ating of.”
Sturdily he arose, and gave a kick at one of the posts of the apple-tree, and set off for the gate as hard as he could go, while the virtuous vein should be uppermost.
“What a darling of honour!” cried Cecil Hales, jumping after him. “A Bayard, a Cato, an Aristides! He shall have his apple, and he shall have sixpence; and unlimited faith for ever. Bonny! come back. Here’s your apple for you, and sixpence; and what would you like to have best in all the world now?”