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“I’ve never in all my life been so ashamed,” she said. “My own family. You’re nothing but a downright disgrace. And after all the Colonel’s done for us. Common thieves, that’s what you are. Nothing but common thieves.”
    When she’d finished it was the Colonel’s turn. “Only one way to deal with young ruffians like you,” he said. “I could have you up before the magistrate, but since I’m the magistrate anyway there’s no need to go to all that trouble, is there? I’ll sentence you right now. You will come up here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock sharp, and I’ll give each ofyou the hiding you so richly deserve. Then you can stay and clean out the hunt kennels till I say you can go. That should teach you not to come poaching on my land.”
    When we got home we had to tell Mother everything we’d done, everything the Colonel had said. Charlie did most of the talking. Mother sat listening in silence, her face stony. When she spoke, she spoke in little more than a whisper. “I can tell you one thing,” she said. “There’ll be no hiding. Over my dead body.” Then she looked up at us, her eyes full of tears. “Why? You said you’d been fishing in the brook. You told me. Oh Charlie, Tommo.” Big Joe stroked her hair. He was anxious and bewildered. She patted his arm. “It’s all right, Joe. I’ll go up there with them tomorrow. Cleaning out the kennels I don’t mind — you deserve that. But it stops there. I won’t let that man lay a finger on you, not one finger, no matter what.”
    Mother was as good as her word. How she did it and what was said we never knew, but the next day after Mother and the Colonel had had a meeting in his study, she made us stand in front of him and apologise. Then after a long lecture about trespassing on private property, the Colonel said that he’d changed his mind, that instead of the hiding we would be set to cleaning out the Colonel’s kennels every Saturday and Sunday until Christmas.
    As it turned out we didn’t mind at all because, although the smell could be disgusting, the hounds were all around usas we worked, their tails high and waving and happy. So we often stopped work to pet them, after we’d made quite sure no one was looking. We had a particular favourite called Bertha. She was almost pure white with one brown foot and had the most beautiful eyes. She would always stand near us as we scraped and swept, gazing up at us in open adoration. Every time I looked into her eyes I thought of Molly. Like Bertha, she too had eyes the colour of heather honey.
    We had to be careful, because Grandma Wolf, now more full of herself than ever, would frequently come out into the stable yard to make sure we were doing our work properly. She’d always have something nasty to say: “Serves you right,” or “That’ll teach you,” or “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” always delivered with a tut and a pained sigh. To finish there’d be some nasty quip about Mother. “Still, with a mother like that, I suppose you’re not entirely to blame, are you?”
    Then Christmas Eve came and our punishment was over at last. We said fond farewells to Bertha and ran off home down the Colonel’s drive for the last time, blowing very loud raspberries as we went. Back in the cottage we found waiting for us the best Christmas present we could ever have hoped for. Molly was sitting there smiling at us as we came in through the door. She was pale, but she was back with us. We were together again. Her hair was cut shorter. The plaits were gone, and somehow that changed the whole look ofher. She wasn’t a girl any more. She had a different beauty now, a beauty that at once stirred in me a new and deeper love.
    I think, without knowing it, I had always charted my own growing up by constant comparison to Molly and