“What’s the matter now?” I said. “Is your ankle worse?”
“And it’ll get worse, and worse, and worse,” Bruno solemnly assured him, “till oo gives up those apples!”
Apparently the thief was convinced of this at last, and he sulkily began emptying his pockets of the apples. The children watched from a little distance, Bruno dancing with delight at every fresh yell extracted from Nero’s terrified prisoner.
“That’s all,” the boy said at last.
“It isn’t all!” cried Bruno. “There’s three more in that pocket!”
Another hint from Sylvie to the Dog-King—another sharp yell from the thief, now convicted of lying also—and the remaining three apples were surrendered.
“Let him go, please,” Sylvie said in Doggee, and the lad limped away at a great pace, stooping now and then to rub the ailing ankle, in fear, seemingly, that the “crahmp” might attack it again.
Bruno ran back, with his booty, to the orchard wall, and pitched the apples over it one by one. “I’s welly afraid some of them’s gone under the wrong trees!” he panted, on overtaking us again.
“The wrong trees!” laughed Sylvie. “Trees can’t do wrong! There’s no such things as wrong trees!”
“Then there’s no such things as right trees, neither!” cried Bruno. And Sylvie gave up the point.
“Wait a minute, please!” she said to me. “I must make Nero visible, you know!”
“No, please don’t!” cried Bruno, who had by this time mounted on the Royal back, and was twisting the Royal hair into a bridle. “It’ll be such fun to have him like this!”
“Well, it does look funny,” Sylvie admitted, and led the way to the farmhouse, where the farmer’s wife stood, evidently much perplexed at the weird procession now approaching her. “It’s summat gone wrong wi’ my spectacles, I doubt!” she murmured, as she took them off, and began diligently rubbing them with a corner of her apron.
Meanwhile Sylvie had hastily pulled Bruno down from his steed, and had just time to make His Majesty wholly visible before the spectacles were resumed.
All was natural, now; but the good woman still looked a little uneasy about it. “My eyesight’s getting bad,” she said, “but I see you now, my darlings! You’ll give me a kiss, won’t you?”
Bruno got behind me, in a moment: however Sylvie put up her face, to be kissed, as representative of both, and we all went in together.
V
Matilda Jane
“Come to me, my little gentleman,” said our hostess, lifting Bruno into her lap, “and tell me everything.”
“I can’t,” said Bruno. “There wouldn’t be time. Besides, I don’t know everything.”
The good woman looked a little puzzled, and turned to Sylvie for help. “Does he like riding?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Sylvie gently replied. “He’s just had a ride on Nero.”
“Ah, Nero’s a grand dog, isn’t he? Were you ever outside a horse, my little man?”
“Always!” Bruno said with great decision. “Never was inside one. Was oo?”
Here I thought it well to interpose, and to mention the business on which we had come, and so relieved her, for a few minutes, from Bruno’s perplexing questions.
“And those dear children will like a bit of cake, I’ll warrant!” said the farmer’s hospitable wife, when the business was concluded, as she opened her cupboard, and brought out a cake. “And don’t you waste the crust, little gentleman!” she added, as she handed a good slice of it to Bruno. “You know what the poetry-book says about wilful waste?”
“No, I don’t,” said Bruno. “What doos he say about it?”
“Tell him, Bessie!” And the mother looked down, proudly and lovingly, on a rosy little maiden, who had just crept shyly into the room, and was leaning against her knee. “What’s that your poetry-book says about wilful waste?”
“For wilful waste makes woeful want,” Bessie recited, in an almost inaudible whisper: “and you may live to say ‘How much I wish I had the crust that then I threw away!’”
“Now try if you can say it, my dear! For wilful—”
“For wifful—sumfinoruvver—” Bruno began, readily enough; and then there came a dead pause. “Can’t remember no more!”
“Well, what do you learn from it, then? You can tell us that, at any rate?”
Bruno ate a little more cake, and considered: but the moral did not seem to him to be a very obvious one.
“Always to—” Sylvie prompted him in a whisper.
“Always to—” Bruno softly repeated: and then, with sudden inspiration, “always to look where it goes to!”
“Where what goes to, darling?”
“Why the crust, a course!” said Bruno. “Then, if I lived to say ‘How much I wiss I had the crust—’ (and all that), I’d know where I frew it to!”
This new interpretation quite puzzled the good woman. She returned to the subject of “Bessie.” “Wouldn’t you like to see Bessie’s doll, my dears! Bessie, take the little lady and gentleman to see Matilda Jane!”
Bessie’s shyness thawed away in a moment. “Matilda Jane has just woke up,” she stated, confidentially, to Sylvie. “Won’t you help me on with her frock? Them strings is such a bother to tie!”
“I can tie strings,” we heard, in Sylvie’s gentle voice, as the two little girls left the room together. Bruno ignored the whole proceeding, and strolled to the window, quite with the air of a fashionable gentleman. Little girls, and dolls, were not at all in his line.
And forthwith the fond mother proceeded to tell me (as what mother is not ready to do?) of all Bessie’s virtues (and vices too, for the matter of that) and of the many fearful maladies which, notwithstanding those ruddy cheeks and that plump little figure, had nearly, time and again, swept her from the face of the earth.
When the full stream of loving memories had nearly run itself out, I began to question her about the working men of that neighbourhood, and specially the “Willie,” whom we had heard of at his cottage. “He was a good fellow once,” said my kind hostess: “but it’s the
