Unluckily, however, it happened, that this tree was so beautiful, and the fruit so fine, that the people, as they used to pass to and from church, were very apt to stop and admire widow Brown’s redstreaks; and some of the farmers rather envied her, that in that scarce season, when they hardly expected to make a pie out of a large orchard, she was likely to make a cask of cider from a single tree.  I am afraid, indeed, if I must speak out, she herself rather set her heart too much upon this fruit, and had felt as much pride in her tree as gratitude to a good Providence for it; but this failing of hers was no excuse for Giles.  The covetousness of this thief had for once got the better of his caution; the tree was too completely stripped, though the youngest boy Dick did beg hard that his father would leave the poor old woman enough for a few dumplings; and when Giles ordered Dick in his turn to shake the tree, the boy did it so gently that hardly any apples fell, for which he got a good stroke of the stick with which the old man was beating down the apples.

The neighbors, on their return from church, stopped as usual; but it was—­not, alas, to admire the apples, for apples there were none left, but to lament the robbery, and console the widow.  Meantime the redstreaks were safely lodged in Giles’ hovel, under a few bundles of hay, which he had contrived to pull from the farmer’s mow the night before, for the use of his jackasses.

Such a stir, however, began to be made about the widow’s apple-tree, that Giles, who knew how much his character laid him open to suspicion, as soon as he saw the people safe in church again in the afternoon, ordered his boys to carry each a hatful of the apples, and thrust them in at a little casement window, which happened to be open in the house of Samuel Price, a very honest carpenter in that parish, who was at church with his whole family.  Giles’ plan, by this contrivance, was to lay the theft on Price’s sons, in case the thing should come to be further inquired into.  Here Dick put in a word, and begged and prayed his father not to force them to carry the apples to Price’s.  But all that he got by his begging was such a knock as had nearly laid him on the earth.

“What, you cowardly rascal,” said Giles, “you will go and peach, I suppose, and get your father sent to jail.”

Poor widow Brown, though her trouble had made her still weaker than she was, went to church again in the afternoon; indeed, she rightly thought that her being in trouble was a new reason why she ought to go.  During the service she tried with all her might not to think of her redstreaks; and whenever they would come into her head, she took up her prayer-book directly, and so she forgot them a little; and, indeed, she found herself much easier when she came out of the church than when she went in—­an effect so commonly produced by prayer, that methinks it is a pity people do not try it oftener.