"Hullo!" Billy said, after watching him a moment. "Where did that knife come from?"
"What's that to you?"
"Hold hard; let's have a look."
Jack held out the knife in a great brown fist It was an expensive-looking tool, with a malachite handle and initials engraved on a gold plate.
"Why, it's... the Bishop's! Jack!"
Jack returned the knife to his pocket with a grin.
"How did you get hold of it?"
"P'raps uncle gave it me for being such a good boy."
"Rats!"
"P'raps I took it."
Billy whistled softly.
"My eye, won't you just catch it!"
"Rather!" said Jack laconically, kicking the heather roots. Then, after a pause: "I say, Bill!"
"Well?"
"Will you swop?"
"Swop what?"
"Why, that bird — for the knife."
Billy sat bolt upright and stared, open-mouthed. The "grey-bird," a common mavis thrush, might be worth, at the most, a shilling; the knife would be worth, to the boy found guilty of stealing it...
"Why, Jack, he'll lick you into the middle of next week!"
Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm not a girl, to mind a bit of a hiding, am I?"
"I say!" Billy turned over on his elbows and looked at him with interest. "You get thrashed a lot, don't you? They do say your uncle's a reg'lar old beast for caning."
"'Twon't be caning any more, so he says. He told me, the last licking I had, he'd take the horsewhip next time, and see if that 'd do me any good."
"What had you been doing?" Jack was more and more laconic "'Forget. Time before last it was for stealing pears out of the garret and shying them off the roof at the squire's old maid sister when she came to call. Just smashed her nice new bonnet."
"The pears did?"
"Only the bad ones; I ate the others, half before the licking and half after, to take the taste out of my mouth."