"Rubbish," said Maurice. "A child that is going without sugar to get money instead, must be old enough to understand something about what money is."
"But that was _my_ plan; it wasn"t Carrots that thought of it at all,"
said Floss, who all this time had stood by, frightened and distressed, not knowing what to say.
"Hold your tongue, Floss," said Maurice, roughly; and Floss subsided.
"Carrots," he continued, turning to his brother, "leave off crying this minute, and listen to me. Who put this piece of money into your paint-box?"
"I did my own self," said Carrots.
"What for?"
"To keep it a secret for Floss," sobbed Carrots.
Maurice turned triumphantly to nurse.
"There," he said, "you see! And," he continued to Carrots again, "you took it out of nurse"s drawer--out of a little paper packet?"
"No," said Carrots, "I didn"t. I didn"t know it was nurse"s."
"You didn"t know nurse had lost a half-sovereign!" exclaimed Mott, "Carrots, how dare you say so?"
"Yes," said Carrots, looking so puzzled, that for a moment or two he forgot to sob, "I did know, Floss told me."
"Then how _can_ you say you didn"t know this was nurse"s?" said Mott.
"Oh, I don"t know--I didn"t know--I can"t under"tand," cried Carrots, relapsing into fresh sobs.
"I wish your mamma were in, that I do," said nurse, looking ready to cry too; by this time Floss"s tears were flowing freely.
"She isn"t in, so it"s no good wishing she were," said Maurice; "but papa is," he went on importantly, "and I"ll just take Carrots to him and see what _he"ll_ say to all this."
"Oh, no, Master Mott, don"t do that, I beg and pray of you," said nurse, all but wringing her hands in entreaty. "Your papa doesn"t understand about the little ones; do wait till your mamma comes in."
"No, indeed, nurse; it"s a thing papa _should_ be told," said Mott, in his innermost heart half inclined to yield, but working himself up to imagine he was acting very heroically. And notwithstanding nurse"s distress, and Floss"s tears, off he marched his unfortunate little brother to the study.
"Papa," he said, knocking at the door, "may I come in? There"s something I must speak to you about immediately."
"Come in, then," was the reply. "Well, and what"s the matter now? Has Carrots hurt himself?" asked his father, naturally enough, for his red-haired little son looked pitiable in the extreme as he crept into the room after Maurice, frightened, bewildered, and, so far as his gentle disposition was capable of such a feeling, indignant also, all at once.
"No," replied Maurice, pushing Carrots forward, "he"s not hurt himself; it"s worse than that. Papa," he continued excitedly, "you whipped me once, when I was a little fellow, for telling a story. I am very sorry to trouble you, but I think it"s right you should know; I am afraid you will have to punish Carrots more severely than you punished me, for he"s done worse than tell a story." Maurice stopped to take breath, and looked at his father to see the effect of his words. Carrots had stopped crying to listen to what Maurice was saying, and there he stood, staring up with his large brown eyes, two or three tears still struggling down his cheeks, his face smeared and red and looking very miserable. Yet he did not seem to be in the least ashamed of himself, and this somehow provoked Mott and hardened him against him.
"What"s he been doing?" said their father, looking at the two boys with more amus.e.m.e.nt than anxiety, and then glancing regretfully at the newspaper which he had been comfortably reading when Mott"s knock came to the door.
"He"s done much worse than tell a story," repeated Maurice, "though for that matter he"s told two or three stories too. But, papa, you know about nurse losing a half-sovereign? Well, _Carrots_ had got it all the time; he took it out of nurse"s purse, and hid it away in his paint-box, without telling anybody. He can"t deny it, though he tried to."
"Carrots," said his father sternly, "is this true?"
Carrots looked up in his father"s face; that face, generally so kind and merry, was now all gloom and displeasure--why?--Carrots could not understand, and he was too frightened and miserable to collect his little wits together to try to do so. He just gave a sort of little tremble and began to cry again.
"Carrots," repeated his father, "is this true?"
"I don"t know," sobbed Carrots.
Now Captain Desart, Carrots" father, was, as I think I have told you, a sailor. If any of you children have a sailor for your father, you must not think I mean to teach you to be disrespectful when I say that sailors _are_, there is no doubt, inclined to be hot-tempered and hasty.
And I do not think on the whole that they understand much about children, though they are often very fond of them and very kind. All this was the case with Carrots" father. He had been so much away from his children while they were little, that he really hardly knew how they had been brought up or trained or anything about their childish ways--he had left them entirely to his wife, and scarcely considered them as in any way "_his_ business," till they were quite big boys and girls.
But once he did begin to notice them, though very kind, he was very strict. He had most decided opinions about the only way of checking their faults whenever these were serious enough to attract his attention, and he could not and would not be troubled with arguing, or what he called "splitting hairs," about such matters. A fault was a fault; telling a falsehood was telling a falsehood; and he made no allowance for the excuses or "palliating circ.u.mstances" there might be to consider. One child, according to his ideas, was to be treated exactly like another; why the same offence should deserve severer punishment with a self-willed, self-confident, bold, matter-of-fact lad, such as Maurice, than with a timid, fanciful, baby-like creature as was his little Fabian, he could not have understood had he tried.
Nurse knew all this by long experience; no wonder, kind though she knew her master to be, that she trembled when Mott announced his intention of laying the whole affair before his father.
But poor Carrots did not know anything about it. "Papa" had never been "cross" to him before, and he was far from clearly understanding why he was "cross" to him now. So he just sobbed and said "I don"t know," which was about the worst thing he could possibly have said in his own defence, though literally the truth.
"No or yes, sir," said Captain Desart, his voice growing louder and sterner--I think he really forgot that it was a poor little shrimp of six years old he was speaking to--"no nonsense of "don"t knows." Did you or did you not take nurse"s half-sovereign out of her drawer and keep it for your own?"
"No," said Carrots, "I never took nucken out of nurse"s drawer. I never did, papa, and I didn"t know nurse had any sovereigns."
"Didn"t you know nurse had _lost_ a half-sovereign? Carrots, how can you say so?" interrupted Mott.
"Yes, Floss told me," said Carrots.
"And Floss hid it away in your paint-box, I suppose?" said Mott, sarcastically.
"No, Floss didn"t. I hided the sixpenny my own self," said Carrots, looking more and more puzzled.
"Hold your tongue, Maurice," said his father, angrily. "Go and fetch the money and the tomfool paint-box thing that you say he had it in."
Mott did as he was told. He ran to the nursery and back as fast as he could; but, un.o.bserved by him, Floss managed to run after him and crept into the study so quietly that her father never noticed her.
Maurice laid the old paint-box and the half-sovereign down on the table in front of his father; Captain Desart held up the little coin between his finger and thumb.
"Now," he said, "Carrots, look at this. Did you or did you not take this piece of money out of nurse"s drawer and hide it away in your paint-box?"
Carrots stared hard at the half-sovereign.
"I did put it in my paint-box," he said, and then he stopped.
"What for?" said his father.
"I wanted to keep it for a secret," he replied. "I wanted to--to--"
"_What?_" thundered Captain Desart.
"To buy something at the toy-shop with it," sobbed Carrots.
Captain Desart sat down and looked at Mott for sympathy.
"Upon my soul," he said, "one could hardly believe it. A child that one would think scarcely knew the value of money! Where can he have learnt such cunning; you say you are sure he was told of nurse"s having lost a half-sovereign?"
"Oh, yes," said Mott; "he confesses to that much himself."