"It doesn't seem to affect your appetite."
Jack shrugged his shoulders and began upon another apple. Mrs. Raymond came running down the path, stout and panting, with clasped hands.
"Jack! Jack! Where are you? Go in at once, you wicked boy! Oh, my dear, do make haste and go in; your uncle will be so angry!"
She caught sight of the visitor standing in the path, and stopped short. Jack looked round, grinning.
"Isn't she soft? She always blubbers when I get a licking."
"You don't, I suppose?"
"I?" said Jack, with a contemptuous stare. "I'm not an old woman. Is uncle going upstairs now, Aunt Sarah? I'll bet you I'll be there before him."
He jumped down from the roof and took the sill of the bow window with as clean a run and spring as if he had been training for a professional acrobat. From there he swung himself up by the ivy to a projecting ledge running round the house between the two stories, and scrambled in at an upper window like a cat.
Mrs. Raymond turned to the visitor in despair.
"What am I to do with him?" she said.
CHAPTER II
The boys came trooping out from school. It was a half-holiday and a glorious midsummer afternoon, and every one, or almost every one, was in high spirits. Jim Greaves, the eldest boy, who was nearly seventeen, and a person of consequence, having always plenty of pocket-money, walked arm in arm with his special friend, Robert Polwheal, "the lamb," so called for his habit of bullying the little ones. The two boys were not popular in the school; but as Jim was richer and Rob stronger than most of the others, a good many things were forgiven them, or, if not forgiven, submitted to in silence. The dul-ness of life at Porthcarrick had induced them to join Jack Raymond's gang of larrikins, which enrolled boys of various characters, sizes, and social ranks; and, though both were much older than the captain, his dominant will kept them fairly submissive to orders.