These words were more true than Ben’s usually were, for the bright-haired young noble himself scarcely offered a greater contrast to the ragged, dirty children, than they with their round rustic faces, marked by little expression but stupidity on that of Ben, sullen obstinacy on Madge’s, and forward impudence on Jack’s, did to the expansive brow and deep thoughtful eye of the boy whom they had spoken of as Mark. “Yes,” said Jack, “he could never even pluck a wild-flower, but he must be pulling it to bits to look at all its parts. It was not enough to him that the stars shine to give us light, he must prick out their places on an old bit of paper, as if it mattered to him which way they were stuck. But of all his fancies he’s got the worst one now; I think he’s going quite crazed.” “What’s he taken into his head?” said Madge. “You remember the bag which the lady dropped at the stile, when she was going to the church by the wood?” Madge nodded assent, and her brother continued: “What fun we had in carrying off and opening that bag, and dividing the things that were in it! Father had the best of the fun of it though, for he took the purse with the money.” “I know,” cried Ben, “and mother had the handkerchief with lace round the edge, and E. S. marked in the corner. We—more’s the shame!—had nothing but some pence, and the keys; and Mark, as the biggest, had the book.” “Ah! the book!” cried Jack; “that’s what has put him out of his wits!” “No one grudged it him, I’m sure,” said Ben, “precious little any of us would have made out of it. But Mark takes so to reading, it’s so odd; and it sets him a thinking, a thinking: well, I can’t tell what folk like us have to do with reading and thinking!” “Nor I!” cried both Madge and Jack. “I shouldn’t wonder,” said the latter, as stretched on the grass he amused himself with shying stones at the sparrows, “I shouldn’t wonder if his odd ways had something to do with that red mark on his shoulder!” “What, that strange mark, like a cross, which made us call him the Red-cross Knight, after the ballad which mother used to sing us?” “Yes; I never saw a mark like that afore, either from blow or burn.” “Mother don’t like to hear it talked of,” said Madge. “Well, whatever has put all this nonsense into his head, father will soon knock it out of him when he comes back!” cried Jack. “He’s left off begging,—he won’t ask for a penny, and he used to get more than we three together, ’cause ladies said he looked so interesting; and he’ll not so much as take an egg from a nest,—he’s turned quite good for nothing!”