Part 8 (1/2)

”Yes, sir, and hurt my ankle, so't I can't walk,” he added, beginning to blubber.

”How did you do that?”

Sam began, and detailed the most outrageous falsehood of which his daring genius was capable. He had met with the most dreadful mischances, by falling over a ”big stun,” which some villainous boys had rolled into the road, expressly to place his limbs in peril, as he pa.s.sed in the dark.

”But how did the boys know how to lay the stone so exactly as to accomplish their purpose?” asked Chester, suspecting the untruth.

For a moment Sam was posed. But his genius did not desert him.

”Oh,” said he, ”I always walk jest in one track along there by Mr.

Cobbett's, on the right-hand side, about a yard from the fence. I s'pose they knowed it, and so rolled the stone up there.”

”You tell the most absurd stories in the world,” replied Chester, indignantly. ”Who do you expect is going to believe them? Now, let me tell you, if I find you have been lying about that horse, and if you have done him any mischief, I will tan you within an inch of your life!”

Sam hastened to declare that he had spoken gospel truth; at the same time feeling a dreadful twinge of conscience at the thought that, for aught he knew to the contrary, Frank might still be running, riderless, twenty miles away.

Mrs. Royden now usurped the conversation, to give him a severe scolding, in the midst of which he limped off to bed, to pa.s.s a sleepless, painful and unhappy night, with his bruised limbs, and in the fear of retribution, which was certain to follow, when his sin and lies should all be found out.

”I wish,” he said to himself, fifty times, ”I wish I had told about the horse; for, like as not, they wouldn't have licked me, and, if I _am_ to have a licking, I'd rather have it now, and done with, than think about it a week.”

VI.

MORNING AT THE FARM.

On the following day Samuel's ankle was so badly swollen as to make a frightful appearance. Mrs. Royden had to call him three times before he could summon courage to get up; and when, threatened with being whipped out of bed, he finally obeyed her summons, he discovered, to his dismay, that the lame foot would not bear his weight.

With great difficulty Sam succeeded in dressing himself, after a fas.h.i.+on, and went hopping down stairs.

”You good-for-nothing, lazy fellow!” began Mrs. Royden, the moment he made his appearance, ”you deserve to go without eating for a week. The boys were all up, an hour ago. What is the matter? What do you hobble along so, for?”

”Can't walk,” muttered Sam, sulkily.

”_Can't walk!_”--in a mocking tone,--”what is the reason you cannot?”

”'Cause my ankle's hurt, where I fell down.”

”There! now I suppose you'll be laid up a week!” exclaimed Mrs. Royden, with severe displeasure. ”You are always getting into some difficulty.

Let me look at your ankle.”

Crying with pain, Sam dropped upon a chair, and pulled up the leg of his pantaloons.

When Mrs. Royden saw how bad the hurt was, her feelings began to soften; but such was her habit that it was impossible for her to refrain from up-braiding the little rogue, in her usual fault-finding tone.

”You never hurt that foot by falling over a stone, in this world!” said she. ”Now, tell me the truth.”

Sam was ready to take oath to the falsehood of the previous night; and Mrs. Royden, declaring that she never knew when to believe him, promised him a beautiful flogging, if it was afterwards discovered that he was telling an untruth. Meanwhile she had Hepsy bring the rocking-chair into the kitchen, where Sam was charged to ”keep quiet, and not get into more mischief,” during the preparation of some herbs, steeped in vinegar, for his ankle.

The vein of kindness visible under Mrs. Royden's habitual ill-temper affected him strangely. The consciousness of how little it was deserved added to his remorse. He was crying so with pain and unhappiness, that when Georgie and Willie came in from their morning play out-doors, they united in mocking him, and calling him a ”big baby.”