A Final Reckoning | Page 5

been a subscription got up for the widow at his death, I should have
put my name down for twenty pounds; and all that I have done for her
is to take eighteen pence a week off that cottage of theirs.
"No, I called the boy to me when he got off, and pretty scared he
looked when he saw me. When he came up, I asked him how he dared
to ride my horses about, without my leave. Of course he said he was
sorry, which meant nothing; and he added, as a sort of excuse, that he
used from a child to ride the horses at the mill down to the ford for
water; and that his father generally had a young one or two, in that
paddock of his by the mill, and he used often to ride them; and seeing
the pony one day, galloping about the field and kicking up its heels, he
wondered whether he could sit a horse still, and especially whether he
could keep on that pony's back. Then he set to, to try.

"The pony flung him several times, at first; and no wonder, as he had
no saddle, and only a piece of old rope for a bridle; but he mastered
him at last, and he assured me that he had never used the stick, and
certainly he had not one when I saw him. I told him, of course, that he
knew he ought not to have done it; but that, as he had taken it in hand,
he might finish it. I said that I intended to have it broken in for Kate,
and that he had best get a bit of sacking and put it on sideways, to
accustom the pony to carry a lady. Then I gave him a shilling, and told
him I would give him five more, when he could tell me the pony was
sufficiently broken and gentle to carry Kate."
Mrs. Ellison shook her head in disapprobation.
"It is of no use, William, my talking to the villagers as to the ways of
their boys, if that is the way you counteract my advice."
"But I don't always, my dear," the squire said blandly. "For instance, I
shall go round tomorrow morning with my dog whip to Thorne's; and I
shall offer him the choice of giving that boy of his the soundest
thrashing he ever had, while I stand by to see it, or of going out of his
house at the end of the quarter.
"I rather hope he will choose the latter alternative. That beer shop of his
is the haunt of all the idle fellows in the village. I have a strong
suspicion that he is in league with the poachers, if he doesn't poach
himself; and the first opportunity I get of laying my finger upon him,
out he goes."
A few days later when Kate Ellison issued from the gate of the house,
which lay just at the end of the village, with the basket containing some
jelly and medicine for a sick child, she found Reuben Whitney awaiting
her. He touched his cap.
"Please, miss, I made bold to come here, to thank you for having
cleared me."
"But I couldn't help clearing you, Reuben, for you see, I knew it wasn't
you."

"Well, miss, it was very kind, all the same; and I am very much obliged
to you."
"But why do you get into scrapes?" the girl said. "If you didn't, you
wouldn't be suspected of other things. Mamma said, the other day, you
got into more scrapes than any boy in the village; and you look nice,
too. Why do you do it?"
"I don't know why I do it, miss," Reuben said shamefacedly. "I suppose
it's because I don't go into the fields, like most of the other boys; and
haven't got much to do. But there's no great harm in them, miss. They
are just larks, nothing worse."
"You don't do really bad things?" the girl asked.
"No, miss, I hope not."
"And you don't tell stories, do you?"
"No, miss, never. If I do anything and I am asked, I always own it. I
wouldn't tell a lie to save myself from a licking."
"That's right," the girl said graciously.
She caught somewhat of her mother's manner, from going about with
her to the cottages; and it seemed quite natural, to her, to give her
advice to this village scapegrace.
"Well, try not to do these sort of things again, Reuben; because I like
you, and I don't like to hear people say you are the worst boy in the
village, and I don't think you are. Good-bye," and Kate Ellison
proceeded on her way.
Reuben smiled as he looked after