The moon was shining on a clear cold night, and it was near ten o’clock, and all the children of the village of Newton, except one, were in bed and asleep. That one, whose name was Frank Lawless, was above three miles from home, weeping with pain and fear, alone, forlorn, cold, and wretched, with no shelter but a leafless hedge and no seat but a hard stone; while his father and mother were running wildly about the fields and lanes, not knowing what had become of their naughty boy.

Frank Lawless had been playing truant that day, and was met by his father with a number of bad boys, to whom he ought not at any time to have spoken. They were the children of brickmakers, and most likely they had never been taught what was right; so that if they said wicked words, told lies, and took things which did not belong to them, one could scarcely wonder at it; but that Frank Lawless, who had the means of knowing the value of good conduct and good manners, should choose such boys for his friends and playfellows, was indeed most strange. Yet thus it was; their shouting, laughing, and vulgar mirth pleased Frank. They had also a great share of cunning, and found the way to manage him, so as to get from him what they wanted to have. When they told Frank that he was very handsome and very clever, and that it was a shame so fine a boy should be forced to go to school if he did not like it, he was silly enough to be pleased, and gave them in return his playthings and his money; nay, he would even take sugar, cakes, fruit, and sweetmeats from his mother’s store-room to bestow on these ill-chosen friends; and their false pretence of love for him made him quite careless of gaining the real love of his father and mother.

On meeting his son in the midst of the brickmakers’ children, Mr. Lawless was very angry, and, taking him home by force, he gave him a severe reproof, and then locked him up in his chamber. Frank, who had lately grown very sullen and froward, was far from being sorry for his fault, and said to himself that his father was both cross and cruel, and wished to prevent his being happy. With these wicked thoughts in his head, he began to contrive how to make his escape; and the window not being very high above the ground, and having a vine growing up to it, whose branches would serve as a sort of ladder, he got out, reached the ground, and passing unseen through the garden-gate, ran with all his speed till he came up to the boys, who were still at the cruel sport of robbing birds’-nests in the lane where he had left them.

But he did not seem half as welcome to them now as in the morning, when he had brought a pocket full of apples, and as he said he was come to live with them, and should never go home again, their manner was quite changed. One took away his hat and another his shoes. They cut sticks to make a bonfire, and, having got a great pile, they made Frank carry it. The weight was too much for him, and when he let it fall, they gave him hard words and still harder blows. He now began to find that the service of the wicked is by no means so easy as to obey the commands of the good.

While Frank Lawless was toiling under his heavy load of sticks, the boys were laying a plan to rob an orchard. It was the autumn season of the year, and all the fruit of the orchard was gone, except the pears of one tree, which, as it stood very near the dwelling-house of the owner of the orchard, these boys had been afraid to climb. Now having Frank Lawless in their power, they thought of making him, in the dusk of the evening, commit the theft and run all the hazard, while they stayed in safety by the hedge, ready to receive the stolen fruit. Frank, dreading what might happen to him in the daring attempt, begged and prayed them not to force him there; but he had made himself a slave to hard task-masters, and they cuffed and kicked him, till, to escape from their hands, he climbed the tree.

Scarcely had Frank pulled half-a-dozen pears, when his false friends heard the farmer who owned the orchard come singing up the lane: and, to save themselves from being thought to have any concern with it, they began to pelt Frank with stones, and cry aloud ’See, see, there is a boy robbing Farmer Wright’s pear-tree.’ Frank got down as quickly as he could, but not soon enough to escape the angry farmer, who gave him a most severe horse-whipping, while those who had brought him into this sad scrape stood laughing, hooting, and clapping their hands. It was useless to try to excuse himself; he had been seen in the tree, the pears were found in his pocket, and the farmer, after whipping him without mercy, pushed him out of the orchard and bade him be gone.

Smarting now with pain, and almost blinded by his tears, he ran to get away from the false and cruel boys who were making sport of what they had caused him to suffer, when one, still more wicked than the rest, threw a great stone after him, which, hitting his ankle-bone, gave him such extreme torture that he sank on the ground not able to proceed a step farther. The boys made off in alarm at what they had done, and Frank, in terror and pain, sat sobbing on a stone till he was found by his father, who had been searching for him in the greatest distress.

His father took him home, warmed and fed him and healed his bruises, though after such extreme bad conduct, he could not esteem and caress him like a good child. It was happy for Frank Lawless that he took the warning of that day. He had gained nothing but shame, pain, and sorrow by his choice of wicked friends, and from that time he chose with more wisdom. Good conduct brought him back to his father’s favour, and now at ten o’clock at night, when the moon and stars were shining in the sky, and the air was cold and frosty, Frank Lawless was always snug in bed, like the rest of the good children of the little village of Newton.