had taken a runaway boy back to Crayshaw's years before,
and Snuffy gave him five shillings. They said he once helped another boy
to get away, but it was a big one, who gave him his gold watch. He would
do anything if you paid him. Jem and I had each a little bundle in a
handkerchief, but nothing in them that the milkman would have cared for.
We managed very well, for we got behind a wall when he went by, and I
felt so much cheered up I thought we should get home that day, far as it
was. But when we got back into the road, I found that Jem was limping,
for Snuffy had stamped on his foot when Jem had had it stuck out beyond
the desk, when he was writing; and the running had made it worse, and at
last he sat down by the roadside, and said I was to go on home and send
back for him. It was not very likely I would leave him to the chance of
being pursued by Mr. Crayshaw; but there he sat, and I thought I never
should have persuaded him to get on my back, for good-natured as he is,
Jem is as obstinate as a pig. But I said, "What's the use of my having
been first horse with the heaviest weight in school, if I can't carry
you?" So he got up and I carried him a long way, and then a cart
overtook us, and we got a lift home. And they knew us quite well, which
shows how little use walnut-juice is, and it is disgusting to get off.

I think, as it happened, it was very unfortunate that we had discoloured
our faces; for though my mother was horrified at our being so thin and
pinched-looking, my father said that of course we looked frights with
brown daubs all over our cheeks and necks. But then he never did notice
people looking ill. He was very angry indeed, at first, about our
running away, and would not listen to what we said. He was angry too
with my dear mother, because she believed us, and called Snuffy a bad
man and a brute. And he ordered the dog-cart to be brought round, and
said that Martha was to give us some breakfast, and that we might be
thankful to get that instead of a flogging, for that when _he_ ran away
from school to escape a thrashing, his father gave him one thrashing
while the dog-cart was being brought round, and drove him straight back
to school, where the school-master gave him another.

"And a very good thing for me," said my father, buttoning his coat,
whilst my mother and Martha went about crying, and Jem and I stood
silent. If we were to go back, the more we told, the worse would be
Snuffy's revenge. An u