can lift one.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Richard; “but one boy can’t, or it would all have been cleared away for me.”
Tom looked in the dry quaint face, which appeared serious, although the boy felt that his uncle was in one of his humorous moods.
“There must be a strange fascination about stealing, Tom,” he continued, “for, you see, quite half of that old iron is gone.”
“More,” said Tom.
“Yes, more, my boy. Strange what trouble rogues will take for very little. Now, for instance, I should say that whatever might have been its intrinsic worth, whoever stole that old iron could not possibly altogether have sold it for more than five shillings, that is to say, about one shilling per week.”
“Is it five weeks since the men began to pull down, uncle?”
“Five weeks yesterday; and that amount could have been earned by an industrious boy in, say, four days, and by a labouring man in two. I’m afraid, Tom, that dishonesty does not pay.”
David, who was close by, helping to load the remainder of the old iron into a cart, edged up to Tom as soon as Uncle Richard had gone into the mill.
“Strikes me, Master Tom,” he said, “as I could put my hand on him as stole that there old iron.”
“Who do you think it was, David?”
“Not going to name no names, sir,” said David, screwing up his lips, and tightening a roll of blue serge apron about his waist. “Don’t do to slander your neighbours; but if you was to say it was old Mother Warboys’ hulking grandson, I wouldn’t be so rude as to contradick you; not as I say it is, mind you, but I’ve knowed that chap ever since he was a dirty little gipsy whelp of a thing, and I never yet knowed him take anything as was out of his reach.”
Tom laughed.
“But I just give him fair warning, Master Tom, that if he comes after my ribstons and Maria Louisas this year – ”
“Did he come last year?” said Tom eagerly.
“Never you mind that, Master Tom. I don’t say as he did, and I don’t say as he didn’t; but I will say this, and swear to it: them Maria Louisas on the wall has got eyes in their heads, and stalks as does for tails, but I never see one yet as had legs.”
“Nor I neither, David,” said Tom, laughing.
“No, sir; but all the same they walked over the wall and out into the lane somehow. So did lots of the ribstons and my king pippins. But tchah! it’s no use to say nought to your uncle. If somebody was to come and steal his legs I don’t b’lieve he’d holler ‘Stop thief!’ but when it comes to my fruit, as I’m that proud on it grieves me to see it picked, walking over the wall night after night, I feel sometimes as it’s no good to prune and train, and manoor things.”
“Ah, it must be vexatious, David!”
“Waxashus is nothing to it, sir. I tell you what it is, sir: it’s made me wicked, that it has. There’s them times when I’ve been going to church o’ Sundays, and seen that there Pete Warboys and two or three other boys a-hanging about a corner waiting till everybody’s inside to go and get into some mischief. I’ve gone to my seat along with the singers, sir, and you may believe me when I tell you, I’ve never heered a single word o’ the sarmon, but sat there seeing that chap after my pears and apples all the time.”
“Then you do give Pete Warboys the credit of it, David?”
“No, I don’t, sir. I won’t ’cuse nobody; but what I do say is this, that if ever I’m down the garden with a rake or hoe-handle in my hand, and Pete Warboys comes over the wall, I’ll hit him as hard as I can, and ask master afterwards whether I’ve done right.”
“David,” said Tom eagerly, “how soon will the pears be ripe?”
“Oh, not for long enough yet, sir; and the worst of it is, if you’re afraid of your pears and apples being stole, and picks ’em soon, they s’rivels up and has no taste in ’em.”
“Then we must lie in wait for whoever it is, when the fruit is ripe, and catch them.”
David shut both of his eyes tight, wrinkled his face up, and shook himself all over, then opened his eyes again, nodded, and whispered solemnly —
“Master Tom, we just will.”
Then he went off to the loading of the iron, saw the last load carted out, and was back ready, after shutting the gate, to take his master’s orders about turning the mill-yard into a shrubbery and garden.
A week with plenty of help from the labourers completely transformed the place. Then plenty of big shrubs and conifers were taken up from the garden, with what David called good balls to their roots, and planted here and there, loads of gravel were brought in, the roller was brought into action, and a wide broad walk led with a curve to the mill-door; there was a broad border round the tower itself, and a walk outside that; and Tom and Uncle Richard stood looking at the work one evening in a very satisfied frame of mind.
“There, Tom, now for tying up my money-bag. That’s all I mean to spend. Now you and I will have to do the rest.”
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