"Yes," said Jack, looking straight at him: "and stinging when we get a chance, like that hornet on your beard."
Dr. Jenkins, forgetting the season, instinctively put his hand up to his face. Immediately he received a violent blow, delivered with admirable precision; and by the time he realised that a trick had been played on him, Jack was racing downhill at breakneck speed.
The doctor leaned against a rock and laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes. It was impossible to feel angry, the thing had been so neatly done.
"What a little devil!" he gasped, as soon as he could speak. "Oh, what an outlandish little devil!"
"And that boy," said Timothy, as they walked on again after the cart had been righted, "has been brought up in a godly house and has had the advantages of Christian precept and example ever since he was six years old. But 'tis no use; what's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh."
"It strikes me," the doctor remarked, "that a good thrashing would have more effect on that urchin than Christian precept and example. He wants the nonsense taken out of him."
"Why, sir," said Timothy; "there's not a boy in Porthcarrick that gets the cane as often as Jack Raymond; anyway, since the captain died."
"Who?"
"Captain John, the Vicar's youngest brother. He was drowned three years ago last October, saving life in rough weather off Longships way by Land's End. The Vicar has no children of his own, so he took in the orphans, for they were left ill-provided, and he's done his duty by them, as a Christian man."
"There are more children, then?"
"There's one little girl, sir — eight years old; and a sweet little maid she is, no more like this imp of darkness than a plaice is like a pilchard. She takes after the Raymonds."