Bunty had been betrayed into telling another story.  It was a very, big one, and he was proportionately miserable.  Everyone else had gone out but Meg, who was still in bed after her fainting fit, and he had been having a lonely game of cricket down in the paddock by himself.  But even with a brand-new cricket ball this game palls after a time when one has to bowl and bat and backstop in solitary state.  So presently he put his bat over into the garden, and began to throw the ball about in an aimless fashion, while he cogitated on what he should do next.  His father’s hack was standing away at the farther end of the paddock, and in an idle, thoughtless way Bunty sauntered down towards it, and then sent his ball spinning over the ground in its direction “to give it a jump.”  Nothing was further from his thoughts than an idea of hurting the animal, and when the ball struck it full on the leg, and it moved away limping, he hastened down to it, white and anxious.

He could see he had done serious mischief by the way the poor thing held its leg up from the ground and quivered when he touched it.  Terror seized him forthwith, and he turned hastily round with his usual idea of hiding in his head.  But to his utter dismay, when he got half-way back across the paddock he saw his father and a brother officer come out of the wicket gate leading from the garden and saunter slowly down in the direction of the horse, which was a valuable and beautiful one.

In terror at what he had done, he slipped the cricket ball into the front of his sailor jacket, and, falling hurriedly upon his knees, began playing an absorbing game of marbles.  His trembling thumb had hit about a dozen at random when he heard his name called in stentorian tones.

He rose, brushed the dust from his shaking knees, and walked slowly down to his father.

“Go and tell Pat I want him instantly,” the Captain said.  He had the horse’s leg in his hand and was examining it anxiously.  “If he’s not about, send Pip.  I can’t think how it’s happened—­ do you know anything of this, Bunty?”

“No, of course not!  I n—­never did n—­n—­nothing,” Bunty said with chattering teeth, but his father was too occupied to notice his evident guilt, and bade him go at once.

So he went up to the stables and sent Pat posthaste back to his father.

And then he stole into the house, purloined two apples and a bit of cake from the dining-room, and went away to be utterly miserable until he had confessed.

He crept into a disused shed some distance from the house; in days gone by it had been a stable, and had a double loft over it that was only to be reached by a ladder in the last stage of dilapidation.  Bunty scrambled up, sat down in an unhappy little heap among some straw, and began thoughtfully to gnaw an apple.

If ever a little lad was in need of a wise loving, motherly mother it was this same dirty-faced, heavyhearted one who sat with his small rough head against a cobwebby beam and muttered dejectedly, “’Twasn’t my fault:  ’Twas the horse:”