The Christmas holidays went by more rapidly than I had expected. I betook myself with enlarged faculty to my book-mending, and more than ever enjoyed making my uncle’s old volumes tidy. When I returned to school, it was with real sorrow at parting from my uncle; and even towards my aunt I now felt a growing attraction.

I shall not dwell upon my school history. That would be to spin out my narrative unnecessarily. I shall only relate such occurrences as are guide-posts in the direction of those main events which properly constitute my history.

I had been about two years with Mr Elder. The usual holidays had intervened, upon which occasions I found the pleasures of home so multiplied by increase of liberty and the enlarged confidence of my uncle, who took me about with him everywhere, that they were now almost capable of rivalling those of school. But before I relate an incident which occurred in the second Autumn, I must say a few words about my character at this time.

My reader will please to remember that I had never been driven, or oppressed in any way. The affair of the watch was quite an isolated instance, and so immediately followed by the change and fresh life of school that it had not left a mark behind. Nothing had yet occurred to generate in me any fear before the face of man. I had been vaguely uneasy in relation to my grandmother, but that uneasiness had almost vanished before her death. Hence the faith natural to childhood had received no check. My aunt was at worst cold; she had never been harsh; while over Nannie I was absolute ruler. The only time that evil had threatened me, I had been faithfully defended by my guardian uncle. At school, while I found myself more under law, I yet found myself possessed of greater freedom. Every one was friendly and more than kind. From all this the result was that my nature was unusually trusting.

We had a whole holiday, and, all seven, set out to enjoy ourselves. It was a delicious morning in Autumn, clear and cool, with a great light in the east, and the west nowhere. Neither the autumnal tints nor the sharpening wind had any sadness in those young years which we call the old years afterwards. How strange it seems to have—all of us—to say with the Jewish poet: I have been young, and now am old! A wood in the distance, rising up the slope of a hill, was our goal, for we were after hazel-nuts. Frolicking, scampering, leaping over stiles, we felt the road vanish under our feet. When we gained the wood, although we failed in our quest we found plenty of amusement; that grew everywhere. At length it was time to return, and we resolved on going home by another road—one we did not know.

After walking a good distance, we arrived at a gate and lodge, where we stopped to inquire the way. A kind-faced woman informed us that we should shorten it much by going through the park, which, as we seemed respectable boys, she would allow us to do. We thanked her, entered, and went walking along a smooth road, through open sward, clumps of trees and an occasional piece of artful neglect in the shape of rough hillocks covered with wild shrubs, such as brier and broom. It was very delightful, and we walked along merrily. I can yet recall the individual shapes of certain hawthorn trees we passed, whose extreme age had found expression in a wild grotesqueness which would have been ridiculous but for a dim, painful resemblance to the distortion of old age in the human family.

After walking some distance, we began to doubt whether we might not have missed the way to the gate of which the woman had spoken. For a wall appeared, which, to judge from the tree-tops visible over it, must surround a kitchen garden or orchard; and from this we feared we had come too nigh the house. We had not gone much further before a branch, projecting over the wall, from whose tip, as if the tempter had gone back to his old tricks, hung a rosy-cheeked apple, drew our eyes and arrested our steps. There are grown people who cannot, without an effort of the imagination, figure to themselves the attraction between a boy and an apple; but I suspect there are others the memories of whose boyish freaks will render it yet more difficult for them to understand a single moment’s contemplation of such an object without the endeavour to appropriate it. To them the boy seems made for the apple, and the apple for the boy. Rosy, round-faced, spectacled Mr Elder, however, had such a fine sense of honour in himself that he had been to a rare degree successful in developing a similar sense in his boys, and I do believe that not one of us would, under any circumstances, except possibly those of terrifying compulsion, have pulled that apple. We stood in rapt contemplation for a few moments, and then walked away. But although there are no degrees in Virtue, who will still demand her uttermost farthing, there are degrees in the virtuousness of human beings.

As we walked away, I was the last, and was just passing from under the branch when something struck the ground at my heel. I turned. An apple must fall some time, and for this apple that some time was then. It lay at my feet. I lifted it and stood gazing at it—I need not say with admiration. My mind fell a-working. The adversary was there, and the angel too. The apple had dropped at my feet; I had not pulled it. There it would lie wasting, if some one with less right than I—said the prince of special pleaders—was not the second to find it. Besides, what fell in the road was public property. Only this was not a public road, the angel reminded me. My will fluttered from side to side, now turning its ear to my conscience, now turning away and hearkening to my impulse. At last, weary of the strife, I determined to settle it by a just contempt of trifles—and, half in desperation, bit into the ruddy cheek.

The moment I saw the wound my teeth had made, I knew what I had done, and my heart died within me. I was self-condemned. It was a new and an awful sensation—a sensation that could not be for a moment endured. The misery was too intense to leave room for repentance even. With a sudden resolve born of despair, I shoved the type of the broken law into my pocket and followed my companions. But I kept at some distance behind them, for as yet I dared not hold further communication with respectable people. I did not, and do not now, believe that there was one amongst them who would have done as I had done. Probably also not one of them would have thought of my way of deliverance from unendurable self-contempt. The curse had passed upon me, but I saw a way of escape.

A few yards further, they found the road we thought we had missed. It struck off into a hollow, the sides of which were covered with trees. As they turned into it they looked back and called me to come on. I ran as if I wanted to overtake them, but the moment they were out of sight, left the road for the grass, and set off at full speed in the same direction as before. I had not gone far before I was in the midst of trees, overflowing the hollow in which my companions had disappeared, and spreading themselves over the level above. As I entered their shadow, my old awe of the trees returned upon me—an awe I had nearly forgotten, but revived by my crime. I pressed along, however, for to turn back would have been more dreadful than any fear. At length, with a sudden turn, the road left the trees behind, and what a scene opened before me! I stood on the verge of a large space of greensward, smooth and well-kept as a lawn, but somewhat irregular in surface. From all sides it rose towards the centre. There a broad, low rock seemed to grow out of it, and upon the rock stood the lordliest house my childish eyes had ever beheld. Take situation and all, and I have scarcely yet beheld one to equal it. Half castle, half old English country seat, it covered the rock with a huge square of building, from various parts of which rose towers, mostly square also, of different heights. I stood for one brief moment entranced with awful delight. A building which has grown for ages, the outcome of the life of powerful generations, has about it a majesty which, in certain moods, is overpowering. For one brief moment I forgot my sin and its sorrow. But memory awoke with a fresh pang. To this lordly place I, poor miserable sinner, was a debtor by wrong and shame. Let no one laugh at me because my sin was small: it was enough for me, being that of one who had stolen for the first time, and that without previous declension, and searing of the conscience. I hurried towards the building, anxiously looking for some entrance.

I had approached so near that, seated on its rock, it seemed to shoot its towers into the zenith, when, rounding a corner, I came to a part where the height sank from the foundation of the house to the level by a grassy slope, and at the foot of the slope espied an elderly gentleman, in a white hat, who stood with his hands in his breeches-pockets, looking about him. He was tall and stout, and carried himself in what seemed to me a stately manner. As I drew near him I felt somewhat encouraged by a glimpse of his face, which was rubicund and, I thought, good-natured; but, approaching him rather from behind, I could not see it well. When I addressed him he started,

‘Please, sir,’ I said, ‘is this your house?’

‘Yes, my man; it is my house,’ he answered, looking down on me with bent neck, his hands still in his pockets.

‘Please, sir,’ I said, but here my voice began to tremble, and he grew dim and large through the veil of my gathering tears. I hesitated.

‘Well, what do you want?’ he asked, in a tone half jocular, half kind.

I made a great effort and recovered my self-possession.

‘Please, sir,’ I repeated, ‘I want you to box my ears.’

‘Well, you are a funny fellow! What should I box your ears for, pray?’

‘Because I’ve been very wicked,’ I answered; and, putting my hand into my pocket, I extracted the bitten apple, and held it up to him.

‘Ho! ho!’ he said, beginning to guess what I must mean, but hardly the less bewildered for that; ‘is that one of my apples?’

‘Yes, sir. It fell down from a branch that hung over the wall. I took it up, and—and—I took a bite of it, and—and—I’m so sorry!’

Here I burst into a fit of crying which I choked as much as I could. I remember quite well how, as I stood holding out the apple, my arm would shake with the violence of my sobs.

‘I’m not fond of bitten apples,’ he said. ‘You had better eat it up now.’

This brought me to myself. If he had shown me sympathy, I should have gone on crying.

‘I would rather not. Please box my ears.’

‘I don’t want to box your ears. You’re welcome to the apple. Only don’t take what’s not your own another time.’ ‘But, please, sir, I’m so miserable!’

‘Home with you! and eat your apple as you go,’ was his unconsoling response.

‘I can’t eat it; I’m so ashamed of myself.’

‘When people do wrong, I suppose they must be ashamed of themselves. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘Why won’t you box my ears, then?’ I persisted.

It was my sole but unavailing prayer. He turned away towards the house. My trouble rose to agony. I made some wild motion of despair, and threw myself on the grass. He turned, looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said in a changed tone—

‘My boy, I am sorry for you. I beg you will not trouble yourself any more. The affair is not worth it. Such a trifle! What can I do for you?’

I got up. A new thought of possible relief had crossed my mind.

‘Please, sir, if you won’t box my ears, will you shake hands with me?’

‘To be sure I will,’ he answered, holding out his hand, and giving mine a very kindly shake. ‘Where do you live?’

‘I am at school at Aldwick, at Mr Elder’s.’

‘You’re a long way from home!’

‘Am I, sir? Will you tell me how to go? But it’s of no consequence. I don’t mind anything now you’ve forgiven me. I shall soon run home.’

‘Come with me first. You must have something to eat.’

I wanted nothing to eat, but how could I oppose anything he said? I followed him at once, drying my eyes as I went. He led me to a great gate which I had passed before, and opening a wicket, took me across a court, and through another building where I saw many servants going about; then across a second court, which was paved with large flags, and so to a door which he opened, calling—

‘Mrs Wilson! Mrs Wilson! I want you a moment.’

‘Yes, Sir Giles,’ answered a tall, stiff-looking elderly woman who presently appeared descending, with upright spine, a corkscrew staircase of stone.

‘Here is a young gentleman, Mrs Wilson, who seems to have lost his way. He is one of Mr Elder’s pupils at Aldwick. Will you get him something to eat and drink, and then send him home?’

‘I will, Sir Giles.’

‘Good-bye, my man,’ said Sir Giles, again shaking hands with me. Then turning anew to the housekeeper, for such I found she was, he added:

‘Couldn’t you find a bag for him, and fill it with some of those brown pippins? They’re good eating, ain’t they?’

‘With pleasure, Sir Giles.’

Thereupon Sir Giles withdrew, closing the door behind him, and leaving me with the sense of life from the dead.

‘What’s your name, young gentleman?’ asked Mrs Wilson, with, I thought, some degree of sternness.

‘Wilfrid Cumbermede,’ I answered.

She stared at me a little, with a stare which would have been a start in most women. I was by this time calm enough to take a quiet look at her. She was dressed in black silk, with a white neckerchief crossing in front, and black mittens on her hands. After gazing at me fixedly for a moment or two, she turned away and ascended the stair, which went up straight from the door, saying—

‘Come with me, Master Cumbermede. You must have some tea before you go.’

I obeyed, and followed her into a long, low-ceiled room, wainscotted all over in panels, with a square moulding at the top, which served for a cornice. The ceiling was ornamented with plaster reliefs. The windows looked out, on one side into the court, on the other upon the park. The floor was black and polished like a mirror, with bits of carpet here and there, and a rug before the curious, old-fashioned grate, where a little fire was burning and a small kettle boiling fiercely on the top of it. The tea-tray was already on the table. She got another cup and saucer, added a pot of jam to the preparations, and said:

‘Sit down and have some bread and butter, while I make the tea.’

She cut me a great piece of bread, and then a great piece of butter, and I lost no time in discovering that the quality was worthy of the quantity. Mrs Wilson kept a grave silence for a good while. At last, as she was pouring out the second cup, she looked at me over the teapot, and said—

‘You don’t remember your mother, I suppose, Master Cumbermede?’

‘No, ma’am. I never saw my mother.’

‘Within your recollection, you mean. But you must have seen her, for you were two years old when she died.’

‘Did you know my mother, then, ma’am?’ I asked, but without any great surprise, for the events of the day had been so much out of the ordinary that I had for the time almost lost the faculty of wonder.

She compressed her thin lips, and a perpendicular wrinkle appeared in the middle of her forehead, as she answered—

‘Yes; I knew your mother.’

‘She was very good, wasn’t she, ma’am?’ I said, with my mouth full of bread and butter.

‘Yes. Who told you that?’

‘I was sure of it. Nobody ever told me.’

‘Did they never talk to you about her?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘So you are at Mr Elder’s, are you?’ she said, after another long pause, during which I was not idle, for my trouble being gone I could now be hungry.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘How did you come here, then?’

‘I walked with the rest of the boys; but they are gone home without me.’

Thanks to the kindness of Sir Giles, my fault had already withdrawn so far into the past, that I wished to turn my back upon it altogether. I saw no need for confessing it to Mrs Wilson; and there was none.

‘Did you lose your way?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘What brought you here, then? I suppose you wanted to see the place.’

‘The woman at the lodge told us the nearest way was through the park.’

I quite expected she would go on cross-questioning me, and then all the truth would have had to come out. But to my great relief, she went no further, only kept eyeing me in a manner so oppressive as to compel me to eat bread and butter and strawberry jam with self-defensive eagerness. I presume she trusted to find out the truth by-and-by. She contented herself in the mean time with asking questions about my uncle and aunt, the farm, the school, and Mr and Mrs Elder, all in a cold, stately, refraining manner, with two spots of red in her face—one on each cheek-bone, and a thin rather peevish nose dividing them. But her forehead was good, and when she smiled, which was not often, her eyes shone. Still, even I, with my small knowledge of womankind, was dimly aware that she was feeling her way with me, and I did not like her much.

‘Have you nearly done?’ she asked at length.

‘Yes, quite, thank you,’ I answered.

‘Are you going back to school to-night?’

‘Yes, ma’am; of course.’

‘How are you going?’

‘If you will tell me the way—’

‘Do you know how far you are from Aldwick?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Eight miles,’ she answered; ‘and it’s getting rather late.’

I was seated opposite the windows to the park, and, looking up, saw with some dismay that the air was getting dusky. I rose at once, saying—

‘I must make haste. They will think I am lost.’

‘But you can never walk so far, Master Cumbermede.’

‘Oh, but I must! I can’t help it. I must get back as fast as possible.’

‘You never can walk such a distance. Take another bit of cake while I go and see what can be done.’

Another piece of cake being within the bounds of possibility, I might at least wait and see what Mrs Wilson’s design was. She left the room, and I turned to the cake. In a little while she came back, sat down, and went on talking. I was beginning to get quite uneasy, when a maid put her head in at the door, and said—

‘Please, Mrs Wilson, the dog-cart’s ready, ma’am.’

‘Very well,’ replied Mrs Wilson, and turning to me, said—more kindly than she had yet spoken—

‘Now, Master Cumbermede, you must come and see me again. I’m too busy to spare much time when the family is at home; but they are all going away the week after next, and if you will come and see me then, I shall be glad to show you over the house.’

As she spoke she rose and led the way from the room, and out of the court by another gate from that by which I had entered. At the bottom of a steep descent, a groom was waiting with the dog-cart.

‘Here, James,’ said Mrs Wilson, ‘take good care of the young gentleman, and put him down safe at Mr Elder’s. Master Wilfrid, you’ll find a hamper of apples underneath. You had better not eat them all yourself, you know. Here are two or three for you to eat by the way.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Wilson. No; I’m not quite so greedy as that,’ I answered gaily, for my spirits were high at the notion of a ride in the dog-cart instead of a long and dreary walk.

When I was fairly in, she shook hands with me, reminding me that I was to visit her soon, and away went the dog-cart behind a high-stepping horse. I had never before been in an open vehicle of any higher description than a cart, and the ride was a great delight. We went a different road from that which my companions had taken. It lay through trees all the way till we were out of the park.

‘That’s the land-steward’s house,’ said James.

‘Oh, is it?’ I returned, not much interested. ‘What great trees those are all about it.’

‘Yes; they’re the finest elms in all the county those,’ he answered. ‘Old Coningham knew what he was about when he got the last baronet to let him build his nest there. Here we are at the gate!’

We came out upon a country road, which ran between the wall of the park and a wooden fence along a field of grass. I offered James one of my apples, which he accepted.

‘There, now!’ he said, ‘there’s a field!—A right good bit o’ grass that! Our people has wanted to throw it into the park for hundreds of years. But they won’t part with it for love or money. It ought by rights to be ours, you see, by the lie of the country. It’s all one grass with the park. But I suppose them as owns it ain’t of the same mind.—Cur’ous old box!’ he added, pointing with his whip a long way off. ‘You can just see the roof of it.’

I looked in the direction he pointed. A rise in the ground hid all but an ancient, high-peaked roof. What was my astonishment to discover in it the roof of my own home! I was certain it could be no other. It caused a strange sensation, to come upon it thus from the outside, as it were, when I thought myself miles and miles away from it, I fell a-pondering over the matter; and as I reflected, I became convinced that the trees from which we had just emerged were the same which used to churn the wind for my childish fancies. I did not feel inclined to share my feelings with my new acquaintance; but presently he put his whip in the socket and fell to eating his apple. There was nothing more in the conversation he afterwards resumed deserving of record. He pulled up at the gate of the school, where I bade him good-night and rang the bell.

There was great rejoicing over me when I entered, for the boys had arrived without me a little while before, having searched all about the place where we had parted company, and come at length to the conclusion that I had played them a trick in order to get home without them, there having been some fun on the road concerning my local stupidity. Mr Elder, however, took me to his own room, and read me a lecture on the necessity of not abusing my privileges. I told him the whole affair from beginning to end, and thought he behaved very oddly. He turned away every now and then, blew his nose, took off his spectacles, wiped them carefully, and replaced them before turning again to me.

‘Go on, go on, my boy. I’m listening,’ he would say.

I cannot tell whether he was laughing or crying. I suspect both. When I had finished, he said, very solemnly—

‘Wilfrid, you have had a narrow escape. I need not tell you how wrong you were about the apple, for you know that as well as I do. But you did the right thing when your eyes were opened. I am greatly pleased with you, and greatly obliged to Sir Giles. I will write and thank him this very night.’

‘Please, sir, ought I to tell the boys? I would rather not.’

‘No. I do not think it necessary.’

He rose and rang the bell.

‘Ask Master Fox to step this way.’

Fox was the oldest boy, and was on the point of leaving.

‘Fox,’ said Mr Elder, ‘Cumbermede has quite satisfied me. Will you oblige me by asking him no questions. I am quite aware such a request must seem strange, but I have good reasons for making it,’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Fox, glancing at me.

‘Take him with you, then, and tell the rest. It is as a favour to myself that I put it, Fox.’

‘That is quite enough, sir.’

Fox took me to Mrs Elder, and had a talk with the rest before I saw them. Some twenty years after, Fox and I had it out. I gave him a full explanation, for by that time I could smile over the affair. But what does the object matter?—an apple, or a thousand pounds? It is but the peg on which the act hangs. The act is everything.

To the honour of my school-fellows I record that not one of them ever let fall a hint in the direction of the mystery. Neither did Mr or Mrs Elder once allude to it. If possible they were kinder than before.