Part 16

“So we went back in procession to the school after I had kissed Nelly, and my clothes had been dug up in the garden, brushed, and put on me again; and when they locked me up in the whitewashed cell, where refractory boys were confined, the sergeant winked at the master, and put Mag’s cage in with me. When the labour-master unlocked the door to give me my dinner of bread and water, he brought something for Mag, and said a kind word to both of us.

“I was quite happy in Mag’s company all that day and night. Nelly’s pluck had made a man of me, in spite of all her fine schemes being upset. And I had a sort of dim hope that the magistrate, who was coming to see the runaway boy, might bring me some kind of good luck.

“Next morning I heard a carriage drive up, and in a few minutes I heard the key put into the lock. I stood up, and put my hands behind me, as we were always made to do when visitors arrived. Mag’s cage was on the floor at my feet.

“The door opened, and there stood the long-lost gentleman who had given me the sovereign, looking down on me with the same pleasant face and the same lively blue eyes! He recognised me at once; to him it was but the other day that I had caught his horse for him; but it had been long years of misery and disgrace to me. But he had been in London and in foreign parts, and had never thought of me since then—so he told me afterwards.

“‘Why, who’s this, and where’s my change?’ he said at once. ‘Didn’t I ask you if I could trust you? And how did you come here, I wonder, with that honest face?’

“It was too much for me, and for all the pluck I had got from Mag and Nelly, I burst into a fit of crying, and leant against the wall, heaving and sobbing. ‘The groom never came,’ was all I could get out at last.

“‘Bring me a chair here, Mr. Reynolds,’ said he, ‘and leave me alone with him. I know this boy.’

“The master went away, and my kind gentleman and I were left alone. I won’t tell you all that passed,” said the farmer tenderly, “it was only the first of a long string of kindnesses he has done me, and made me the happy old fellow I am. He got it all out of me by degrees. He heard all about Mag and Nelly, and all about Miss Pringle and the robbery. He took particular notice of Mag, and seemed very curious to know all about his ways. And when he went away he told the master to treat me as usual till he came back the next day.

“And now I’ve nearly done my yarn,” said the farmer; “she must be tired of Nelly and me by this time,” he added, looking at his wife, but it was getting too dark for me to see the twinkle that I know now was in his eyes as he said it.

“My gentleman came early, and to my astonishment, both I and Mag were put into his carriage, and he drove us away. Still more taken back was I when we stopped at Uncle Jonas’s, and out came Miss Nelly and climbed into the seat next me. We were too shy to kiss each other or talk, but after a bit I pulled out the wisp of hair from my trousers pocket and showed it her. Nelly couldn’t make it out, then, but she knows now how I got it. She knows—she knows,” said the farmer; “and here it is now,” and he showed me a locket, attached to his watch-chain, with some brown hair in it.

I looked, and was going to ask a question, when he held up his hand to hush me, and went on.

“We drove many miles, the gentleman asking questions now and then, especially about Mag, but for the most part we were silent. At last I saw the three elms and the spire come in sight, and I had hard work to keep the tears in. I sat with Nelly’s hand in mine, but we said never a word.

“We dropped Nelly at her mother’s cottage, and she was told that she would probably be sent for presently. Then we drove on to Miss Pringle’s, and went straight to the stable-yard; there was no pony, and the grass was growing in the yard. Miss Pringle, I found afterwards, would have no more boys about the place.

“‘Which was your room?’ said the gentleman, and I showed him upstairs.

“‘Stay here till I come for you,’ said he. ‘Can I trust you?’

“He did not wait for an answer, but went away, taking Mag with him. I sat down and looked out at the garden, and at the window where I had jumped out that terrible day, and wondered what was going to happen; and what happened is the last thing I am going to tell you.

“He went round to the front door, and presently came out into the garden, still carrying Mag’s cage. Then he put down the cage on the lawn, leaving its door open. Then he went back into the house, and I could see him and Miss Pringle come and sit at the open window of the parlour. He kept his eye on the cage, and seemed to say little; Miss Pringle looked rather puzzled, I thought, and shook her curls pretty often in a fidgety sort of way.

“Mag sat there in his cage for some time, though the door was wide open, as if he didn’t quite see what it all meant; and I sat at my window, too, as much puzzled as the bird or Miss Pringle.

“At last Mag began to stir a bit; then he came out and looked carefully all round, hopped about a bit, and at last got upon the garden chair, and seemed to be thinking of something, with his head on one side. All of a sudden he gave his long tail a jerk, and uttered a kind of a knowing croak; then he came down from the seat and hopped away towards the flower-bed under the window. The gentleman pulled Miss Pringle behind the curtain when he saw Mag coming, and I couldn’t see her any more; but I should think she must have been more puzzled than ever, poor lady.

“From my window I could see Mag digging away in the earth with his bill just in the corner of the flower-border by the house; and it wasn’t long before he got hold of something, and went off with it in his bill down the garden, as pleased as Punch, and talking about it to himself. And well he might be pleased, for it was the saving of me, and I believe he knew it; bless his old bones down yonder by the hedge!

“As soon as Mag began to hop down the garden I saw my gentleman do just what I had done before him; he jumped straight out of the window, and down came the flowerpots after him. I saw Miss Pringle give a jump from behind the curtain and try to save them; but it was too late, and there she stood in the window wringing her hands, while Mag and the gentleman raced round the garden, over the neat beds and through the rose-bushes, until everything was in such a mess that I can tell you it took me a good long time to tidy it all up early next morning.

“At last he got Mag into a corner by the toolhouse, and a minute later he was in my room, with Mag in one hand, pecking at him till the blood came, and in the other a sovereign!

“‘Here’s the thief,’ he said; ‘shall we send for a policeman?’ But Miss Pringle had already done that, for she thought that every one was going mad, and that somebody ought to be taken up; and when I had been taken over to the house, feeling rather queer and faint, and had been put on the sofa in the drawing-room, in came the neat maidservant and said that the constable was at the door. And when I heard that, I went straight off into a downright faint.

“When I woke up I was still on the sofa, the neat-faced clock was ticking, there were steps on the gravel path in the garden, Miss Pringle was sitting there looking very sad, and there were tears in her eyes, and I thought for a moment that that dreadful hour had never come to an end after all.

“But there was no policeman; and who was this sitting by my side? Why, it was dear old Nelly! And as she laid her head against mine, with all that hair of hers tumbling over my face, that kind gentleman came into the room from the garden, where he had been trying to quiet himself down a bit, I think, and patted both our heads, without saying ever a word.

“After a bit, however, he made us sit up, and gave us a good talking to. It was not Mag’s fault, he said, that we had got into such a terrible scrape, but mine for disobeying Miss Pringle and keeping the bird in the stable; and Nelly’s, too, for leading me on to it. And we must take great care of Mag now that he had got us out of the scrape, and keep him, to remind us not to get into any more.

“And we kept him to the last day of his life; and as for scrapes, I don’t think we ever got into any more, at least, not such bad ones as that was—eh, Nelly?”

And seeing me open my eyes wide, he laughed, and asked me whether I hadn’t found it out long before the story came to an end, and then, putting his arm round his bonny wife, he added, “Yes, lad, here’s my old Nelly, and she’ll climb a tree for you to-morrow, if you ask her.”