"Look! look!" exclaimed Betty suddenly, in a hoarse whisper. She pointed towards the orchard, and then crouched down behind a branch, trying to look even smaller than nature had made her. The others followed her example, until they were not much more conspicuous than three young squirrels. But though the children scarcely dared breathe in their anxiety to remain hidden, six eager eyes were strained towards a certain point in the orchard.
A tall, thin man, with a gray beard, was standing not many yards from Jack, carefully examining him through an eye-glass. How the man got there nobody knew; possibly he rose up from the earth or fell down from the sky; more probably he walked out of Mrs. Howard's garden gate while the children were hunting for their rope-ladder. At any rate he seemed immensely surprised at Jack's presence in the orchard.
A TALL, THIN MAN WAS CAREFULLY EXAMINING JACKA TALL, THIN MAN WAS CAREFULLY EXAMINING JACK
A TALL, THIN MAN WAS CAREFULLY EXAMINING JACKA TALL, THIN MAN WAS CAREFULLY EXAMINING JACK
The gray-bearded man stood irresolute for some time, as if unable to make up his mind exactly how to treat the intruder. At last he walked away towards the house, shouting to someone in the garden to come to his assistance. Presently in answer to his call a boy ran across the field. Even in the distance the children recognized that it was Lewis Brand, and they became if possible more interested in the proceedings than they were before.
With considerable difficulty the gray-bearded man and Lewis hunted Jack into a corner of the field, but just as they were about to catch the goat he invariably sprang past them and escaped. Madge could hardly keep from laughing aloud, because it was all so exactly what had happened to her when she tried to drive Jack and Jill out of the garden.
The Wests wondered a good deal if Lewis had any idea that the goat belonged to them, and whether he noticed them crouching in the beech-tree. For a long time he seemed absolutely unconscious of their presence, but suddenly, when the gray-bearded man's back was turned, Lewis looked towards the Eagle's Nest and unmistakably smiled. In a moment Madge had replied by waving her pocket-handkerchief frantically among the branches.
Instead of replying in a friendly spirit to this signal, Lewis made the most horrible grimace, put his finger to his lip, and turned away resolutely.
"We must keep very quiet. He is afraid of being seen," whispered Madge, putting her handkerchief away. But she could not help feeling rather mortified that Lewis had not trusted to her discretion only to wave when his companion was looking the other way. She was not in the habit of doing stupid things, and Lewis might have known it.
After a great deal of running up and down, the gray-bearded man seemed to consider it a hopeless task ever to catch Jack, so he changed his plan and tried to drive the goat into a little shed in the corner of the field. This was a much easier feat to accomplish, and in ten minutes more Jack was safely imprisoned and the door shut. Then the gray-bearded man, evidently much exhausted by his exertions, walked off to the garden, fanning himself with his black felt hat as he went. Lewis lingered behind his companion for one moment, and rapidly made a mysterious series of signs. First he pointed at the door of the shed where Jack was inclosed, then drew his hand across his own throat several times. Lastly he shook his fist violently at the back of the gray-bearded man as he followed him out of the field.
"What did Lewis mean by making all those funny faces?" asked John, when, the enemy being quite out of sight, the children dared once more speak and move.
"I don't know," said Madge. "It looked as if he were angry with that man—"
"No!" interrupted Betty. "It's worse than that! Lewis was trying to show us that the gray-bearded man is going to hurt poor Jack. I believe he has gone for a knife to cut his throat!"
There was a horrified silence after these words, for the more the children thought over them the more likely did it appear that Lewis's signs had really contained some such terrible meaning. Madge as usual was the first to come out with a heroic resolution.
"If that terrible man comes back with a knife to murder Jack," she said, "I shall jump off the wall and attack him with a stick. Very likely I shall break both my legs, but I don't care. I can't leave Jack to his fate."
Betty and John listened with uneasy admiration. They were just as sorry about Jack as Madge was; almost in tears at the idea of his possible death. But they did not feel brave enough to jump off the wall and risk breaking their legs. If it had been one leg between them perhaps they might have faced it, but four legs were too many for even brave twins to sacrifice.
"Why do you think you will break them both if you jump?" asked Betty anxiously, hoping against hope that there might be some miscalculation.
"Because I know you can break one leg if you only fall five or six feet, and this is double that height," replied Madge promptly.
Such logical reasoning did not admit of a single ray of hope.
"I don't think we are big enough to jump, then," said Betty modestly. And for once John did not contradict her.
However, for the second time that afternoon Madge was spared having to carry out a heroic resolve. The gray-bearded man did not return, either with or without a knife. It is true that Jack's voice could occasionally be heard raised in distressed accents from the inside of the shed. But unless his life was in imminent danger, even Madge did not feel inclined to sacrifice her limbs.
"After all, it was entirely his own fault jumping over the wall," she remarked when they had waited a long time without anything happening.
"And they don't seem to be going to kill him," observed Betty.
"And it's long past tea-time," added John.
This last consideration decided the children, and they returned to the house without taking any further steps towards rescuing Jack.
Nothing more was heard of the missing pet that evening. The children did not say anything about his escape, and their father happened to be staying out rather late, so that when he came home Barton had left work. The old man had noticed that there was only one goat in the field when he went to drive them in for the night, but he did not waste much time hunting for Jack, having expressed his opinion from the first that it would be a good job when those nasty creatures either ran away or got sent off in disgrace! He did not like any pets, regarding them as useless creatures who ate food, gave trouble, and repaid nothing. If he had been allowed his way the children's tame rabbits and pigeons would all have gone into pies.
Of course there was a good deal of anxiety about Jack's fate among the only three people at Beechgrove who knew all the facts of his disappearance. As the hours passed by, and they actually went to bed and got up again without hearing any news, they began to wonder if, after all, they should never know what had become of him. When they all went to the schoolroom, and lessons began as usual, this really seemed rather probable. But in the middle of saying the English dates there was a knock at the door. John noticed it first, not because his hearing was particularly acute so much as on account of its being his turn to say the next date—which he had forgotten.
"Do attend, John!" said Miss Thompson. "Who came after Queen Anne? You always forget!"
"But there was a knock at the door, I am sure! Yes, there's another!" And for once John proved to be in the right, for at that moment Captain West entered the room.
"I'm dreadfully sorry to interrupt," he said to Miss Thompson, "for I can see by the children's faces that something very interesting is going on—"
"Oh, Papa!" interrupted Betty. "Why, it's only the English dates!"
"Well, what can be more interesting?" But as nobody answered he continued: "However, I haven't time to discuss the delights of your various studies, I must leave that to you and Miss Thompson to settle between you. All I want to say at present is, that you children must really be careful and not get me into trouble with my neighbours. I have just had a letter brought by Mrs. Howard's servant making complaints. Now mind, I can't have any more of this trespassing on—"
"We didn't step on Mrs. Howard's ground! Not one single inch!" interrupted Madge.
"I didn't ever suppose that you did, considering the height of the wall you would be obliged to climb over to get there!" said Captain West. "But there has been a trespasser on her land all the same, and I hold you partly responsible for him."
"Is it Jack?" gasped Madge. "What has she done with him? Oh, please tell me!"
"Why, sent him back, to be sure, with a polite note requesting me to keep him under better control," answered Captain West. "It seems that he got over the wall into her field somehow, and they shut him up for a time. But he got loose before long, as usual, and in chasing him about the garden some boy broke a cucumber-frame, and poor Jack got all the blame for that as well as for destroying a row of early peas. So he was sent back in sad disgrace."
"Did Mrs. Howard try to kill him?" asked John solemnly.
"Kill him? No!" laughed Captain West. "Did you think she wanted roast kid for dinner? But how did he manage to jump over such a high wall, I wonder? I suppose he did it while you were in the fields with him, as you seem to know all about it?"
"He jerked the string out of my hand and went off with it," said Madge.
"And jumped the wall, I suppose?" added her father. "Well, it's a tremendous height even for a goat, but one never can tell how high they will go. However, I mustn't interrupt you any more at lesson-time."
"This will teach Jack to look before he leaps," said Betty softly as the door shut behind her father. She always enjoyed having the last word, especially if she could twist it into a proverb.
The children were much relieved at this happy conclusion to their anxiety; but their delight was somewhat lessened when Captain West made a rule that Jack and Jill were never to be let out of their pig-sty unless he was at home to see that they did not get into mischief. The poor goats did not at all approve of remaining prisoners so much of their time; but really it seemed the only way of preventing them from breaking bounds. The children did what they could to cheer their pets in captivity by bringing them handfuls of cabbages and carrots at all hours in the day, and Jack and Jill began to grow so fat that before long it was to be hoped they would lose all taste for jumping.
It is wonderful how often grown-up people walk about the world with their eyes shut. Captain West thought himself decidedly an observant man. He was fond of his garden, and even worked in it for hours at a time; but he never noticed that within his domain there were sundry other little gardens, just as carefully tended, and exhibiting a much greater ingenuity of arrangement than his own. For instance, there was one within a few yards of the schoolroom window, just at the corner of the house, under the laburnum-tree. Here Betty was working hard one morning, when, having finished her lessons with unusual quickness, she was allowed out of the schoolroom half an hour before the others.
A more unpromising site for a garden it would have been difficult to imagine. All that the ordinary world saw were two stone slabs, that had something to do with lighting a cellar below the house. But the children had long ago discovered, that one stone being several inches higher than the other, water poured on it would rush like a miniature cascade to the lower level. This was by no means the only possibility of amusement that the stones afforded. A large crack ran down the centre of each, and these when properly blocked with mud at either end made two admirable lakes. There were other smaller cracks, in which the children from time to time planted a daisy or a laburnum seed. Once or twice they had been known to grow, which was distinctly encouraging.
This little pleasure-ground had lately suffered considerable neglect, owing to the number of exciting events that had occurred. Besides, when Madge was out of doors she liked larger and more energetic amusements. But Betty was devoted to arranging her little garden in new ways, and directly she found herself alone she began to work out a scheme for beautifying it that she had long had in her head. The lakes were carefully formed with some nice sticky handfuls of clay at either end to keep in the water. This had often been done before, but it was quite a new thing, and entirely Betty's own idea, to cover the mud banks with glittering fragments of gravel, so that they looked like rockeries. She also stuck bits of grass round the edges to do duty for rushes, and very well they looked. But the most happy thought of all was making imitation water-lilies out of nasturtium leaves. When that was done, Betty stopped to admire her work with very natural pride. It seemed almost as perfect as human skill could make it.
At that moment up came John. He had finished his lessons before Madge, who, it seemed, had got into difficulties over her sums, from which she was not likely to emerge until dinner-time. John admired the new arrangements exceedingly, and also contributed a suggestion to the effect that there should be a fleet on the lake.
"Yes, but one of our boats will fill up the whole lake," said Betty, who did not quite appreciate having her own arrangements interfered with by a new-comer.
John made no direct answer, but dipping his hand deep into his pocket, he drew out about a dozen nut-shells and deposited them on the stone.
Betty examined the heap carefully. "There isn't a single kernel left, not half a one!" she said in a tone of disappointment. "What's the good of bringing those?"
"Boats, don't you see?" explained John. And really the nut-shells, such of them at least as were not too utterly smashed, made excellent boats, in exact proportion to the size of the lake. When a little extra excitement was required, Betty scraped away the mud that blocked back the water on the upper stone, and a cataract rushed out, bearing the whole fleet with it, and plunged recklessly into the depths of the lower pool.
Once they adjourned for a short time to another little garden that had lately been planned out in the middle of a shrubbery. To approach it, one had first to cross a broad flower-border that edged the shrubbery. Theoretically the children always jumped this flower-bed, leaving no trace of their footsteps, but in practice, as it was rather wide, they usually alighted heavily in the middle of it. Many a broken geranium and crushed heliotrope testified to their unsuccessful efforts, and Captain West, having no clue to their proceedings, was often driven to wonder what charm—except naughtiness—there could be about jumping on the flower-beds. He had not penetrated into the middle of the shrubbery for years; never since the laurels and hollies had grown into a solid prickly barrier against the outer world. So he could not possibly guess that somewhere out of sight a weakly bush had been gradually choked to death by its more robust companions, and that the children on one of their voyages of discovery had noticed this, and decided that since the poor thing was nearly dead it would obviously be more sensible to pull it up and make a garden in its place. Of course, the ground was so full of the roots of trees that ordinary digging was quite out of the question; a spade (even if Madge stepped on it with both feet and all her weight) would not go in more than half an inch. But in the end the children very satisfactorily scratched up the ground for about a square yard with pointed sticks, and put in a row of primroses upside down, because they had been told that if planted in that position they would come up red. This experiment failed with the greatest regularity year after year in whatever corner of the garden it was tried. Yet both children and gardeners are such hopeful people, that when the two are combined one may expect to see absolutely impossible feats cheerfully embarked upon as often as the sun rises.
Betty and John did not go to this charming retreat empty-handed. The former had some plants torn up by the roots, the latter a half-filled watering-pot. The fact was that several small things had been left over after finishing the naval display, and it seemed a pity to waste them. Water, for instance, was always valuable, because there was a certain amount of difficulty about getting it. The gardener objected to their drawing off much from his pump, which was apt to run dry in hot weather, while if they went indoors to get a drop from a tap they were at once set upon by innumerable people ordering them not to make messes and wet their frocks. So when some water was left over from flooding the lake, it was proposed not to throw it away, but to carry it to the shrubbery garden, where there were several languishing plants. There was the inevitable little struggle for possession of the watering-pot; but Betty was not unreasonable, so she gave it up when John pointed out that she had the undivided enjoyment of it while he was at lessons. And in its place she carried two or three very drooping nasturtium plants, that had unfortunately come up by the roots while she was picking their leaves. They would do very well to plant in the shrubbery, where the sun could never manage to pierce the screen of overhanging boughs even at mid-day. All gardeners know that a hot sun has a very disastrous effect on newly-moved plants, especially if their roots are mostly torn off.
"I'll hold the watering-pot while you jump over the geranium-bed," said Betty. "You know we broke two last week, and Papa said if he caught—"
"Nonsense! It's only you girls with your skirts who break things," interrupted John, clutching his watering-pot tighter than ever, for he strongly suspected his sister of intending to wile it away from him. He jumped, the watering-pot was heavy, and the weight all on one side. Consequently he fell, and his fall was unusually disastrous, being marked by more than the ordinary number of crushed geraniums and scattered earth. Of course the water was all upset, principally into his boots: and Betty threw away her nasturtiums in disgust, for it was quite useless to plant them dry, and they had both been warned off the pump and the tap that very morning. There might easily have been some rather bitter reproaches at this point, but fortunately Madge was sent out to summon them to dinner.
"I want you to do something for me this afternoon," she said to Betty and John as they returned to the house. "Miss Thompson is going to take me to Churchbury shopping, and I think Lewis will be expecting me at the Eagle's Nest. I said something about it yesterday before I knew that I was going shopping."
"But why can't John and I go and talk to him?" answered Betty. "We aren't all going shopping."
"You don't think he will care to talk to little things like you?" laughed Madge. "Why, he is two years older than me even; but, of course, that isn't much. I only want you to tell him why I haven't come, and that we shall have the usual afternoon holiday on Saturday. Then you can come straight back, for I am sure he won't stop with you."
Since the day that Jack jumped over the wall Lewis had talked to the children several times, standing close under the tree, and keeping an anxious eye in the direction of Mrs. Howard's house all the while. Of course he could not climb up to play with them since the rope-ladder so mysteriously disappeared. There had been no explanation of that strange disappearance. At first the children feared that Barton had found their hiding-place, and recovered his missing property; but they soon made up their minds that this could not be the case, when the old man continued to meet them every day without any signs of anger. For when Barton suspected that they had been in mischief, he did not hesitate to scold them severely himself, and also complain to their father. They often got into trouble this way when he found them hunting the pigs too vigorously, or playing tricks with the milk-pails. He would certainly have made a great fuss about their borrowing his ropes without leave, and knotting them all over. So, as he said nothing, it was pretty certain that he knew nothing.
But though Lewis Brand was now completely cut off from the Eagle's Nest, being on a lower level by about a dozen feet than the children who were sitting in it, he contrived to tell them a wonderful number of stories about himself and the bad treatment which he suffered, speaking all the while in a loud whisper that was very impressive. In this way they heard, among other curious facts, that the gray-bearded man was the jailer of whose cruelties Lewis had already told them. The children were surprised at this, for the gray-bearded man had not looked either very powerful or very savage. But they accepted from Lewis the explanation that he was a hypocrite.
John and Betty started rather unwillingly on their task. It seemed sadly dull to walk across several fields under a burning sun merely to deliver a message for Madge, while she was enjoying an afternoon among the Churchbury shops. Of course they were at perfect liberty to stay playing in the Eagle's Nest as long as they liked. But somehow they did not care to linger there by themselves. Without Madge's substantial protection the shade of the spreading beech-trees seemed more gloomy, and the distance from the house greater, even than usual. Besides, when Madge was not present to remind them of the laws of trespass, they could not help feeling as if Mrs. Howard might pounce upon them at any moment and drag them over the wall to her darkest cellars. So they only intended just to give their message to Lewis if he appeared, and then to hurry back to those little gardens of which they were so fond, where there was always something to be done, and no fear of being kidnapped.
However, everything turned out as differently as possible to what they had expected. No sooner had they climbed on to the Eagle's Nest than they heard a low whistle, and looking down saw Lewis gliding along on his side of the wall with the stealthy tread of an Indian on an enemy's trail. He was a thin boy, with a white face, and always looked over his shoulder as if he expected some foe to be coming up behind him.
"Madge can't come. She had to go to Churchbury shopping. She told us to tell you," said Betty, leaning down from her perch and speaking as low as she could. The children at Beechgrove shouted so much when they were at home, that it was always a great effort to them to lower their voices. Lewis, on the contrary, had the art of carrying on a long conversation all in whispers, it seemed natural to him.
"All right! Never mind. We can do just as well without her," was the unexpected answer.
Betty looked puzzled. "Shall I give her any message from you about Saturday?" Betty said, preparing to leave the Eagle's Nest.
"What are you in such a hurry to be off for?" cried Lewis, rather louder than usual. "Aren't you going to stop and talk?"
"But Madge isn't here, and—"
"Oh, bother Madge!" interrupted Lewis. "You and John aren't her slaves, are you? Can't we have a bit of fun by ourselves for once, without having her interfering and trying to manage everything? I often wonder you two stand it! I know I wouldn't!"
"But I thought you and Madge were such friends!" said Betty, much bewildered by the strangeness of this declaration.
"She thinks you don't care to speak to us. Only to her, because she is older," chimed in John.
"Well, that's just where she makes a mistake," said Lewis roughly. "I can't abide girls who think they are so grand, and are always ordering other people about! Why, to hear her talk of this Eagle's Nest one would believe she made it all herself, and I daresay you and John worked just as hard as she did."
Now until this moment it had never struck Betty and John as strange that Madge should take the lead in everything. She was the oldest, biggest, and strongest of the three; and if she usually had her own way about everything, it had only seemed natural to the others that this should be so. Besides, she took all the trouble of making plans for them, and they really had much more fun under her guidance than they would have had alone. So it was quite a new view to them that they were oppressed, but when it had once been put into their heads they began to think that perhaps they had something to complain of after all.
"Now you won't be such silly sneaks as to go and tell Madge everything I have been saying?" observed Lewis rather anxiously when he noticed what a serious impression his words were making. "If you are such babies as that I shall never speak to you again. And I have not been saying any harm either, you know." He was beginning to fear, from the twins' solemn faces, that they would go home and repeat his words to Madge. "Only I have always thought you two looked such jolly little things, if your sister would give you a chance of being spoken to, or played with," he added.
All this was excessively flattering coming from a big boy of fourteen, and after some more remarks of the sort Betty and John began to feel that they were very fine people, who had always, rather unjustly, been kept in the background by their elder sister. For the first time in their lives they looked upon Madge as a tyrant.
"I should like to come up there and play with you," continued Lewis. "Only the wall is rather too high for me to climb now that the ladder has gone. Oh, I have a good idea! Capital! The very thing! Why didn't we think of it before, I wonder?"
"What is it?" cried the twins. "What have you thought of?"
Lewis did not answer, but turned away and ran quickly to the shed where Jack had been shut up. Presently he came out again, dragging some iron railings, which with considerable trouble he got as far as the overhanging boughs of the beech-tree.
"There's a ladder for you!" he exclaimed proudly, as he propped the railings against the wall.
"It's splendid! Quite splendid!" shouted the twins, forgetting in their excitement how near they were to the terrible house with the cellar.
"Hush! Hush!" whispered Lewis. "If you make such a noise we shall be caught, and all our fun stopped. And it's not quite perfect either. Not high enough. See!"
In point of fact the top bar of the railings was only five feet from the ground, so that it did not reach more than half-way up the wall. It was very nice as far as it went, but more of it was badly wanted. However, Lewis was not easily discouraged. He returned to the shed, where there were several more railings, and dragged out another. "They are dreadfully heavy," he said; "but I don't care. I shall go on fetching them until I get enough to reach the top of the wall. I know there are a heap of them in the shed. They are kept there when they are not being used to divide the field."
"Take care you don't tumble! Oh, that's beautiful! I do wish we could help you!" cried the twins, looking on in the highest admiration while Lewis slowly pushed and pulled one railing on the top of another against the wall. Then he tied them together with some bits of string out of his pocket, and proceeded to mount. It was not a very steady ladder, but with the wall to lean against there was small fear of falling, and when near the top of it Lewis could reach the hands that were eagerly stretched out to help him. In another moment he was sitting on the Eagle's Nest.
"This is a goodish sort of tree," he remarked, looking round with a patronizing air. "Very easy to climb, of course—"
"Oh, but I can go much higher than these boughs by the wall!" interrupted Betty. "So high that my feet are where your head is now."
"That's not much," said Lewis scornfully. "Girls never can climb much. They just flop about, and catch their frocks in all the branches, and get giddy, and cry to be helped down again!"
Betty flushed hotly. "You are talking nonsense!" she shrieked. "Silly nonsense! I can climb much higher than John; and as for crying—"
Her remarks were promptly cut short by a hand being roughly pressed over her mouth. "Hold your tongue!" whispered Lewis. "Unless you wish old Mother Howard and her slave-drivers to be after us!"
At this terrible threat Betty looked nervously towards the brick house. But there was nothing to be seen in that direction except the quiet old cows in the orchard below. She was so reassured by seeing them chewing the cud, as if nothing dreadful could possibly happen, that she regained sufficient courage to remark defiantly that after all Mrs. Howard did not seem a very formidable person.
"That shows all you know about it!" replied Lewis. "I can tell you a very different tale. If you two will promise faithfully not to say a single word of what I tell you to anybody—not to Madge, or your nurse, or anybody,—then I will tell you something that nobody else knows. Only it's a secret, you must remember,—a dead secret."
This was very solemn work. Betty and John glanced at each other, both longing to know the secret, and yet a little afraid of the conditions that had been imposed.
"Mightn't we just tell Madge if she promises not to repeat it?" Betty ventured to say.
"Certainly not! We don't want Madge poking her interfering nose into everything, do we?" replied Lewis rudely. "Just make up your minds whether you want to hear a most terrible and extraordinary thing, or not, for I can't wait much longer. But if I don't tell you to-day I sha'n't breathe a word of it another time, so it's no good teasing me again."
This last remark decided Betty. She was very curious by nature, and could not bear to miss any piece of news that promised to be interesting.
"I think I must hear the secret, although I would much rather tell Madge about it," she said in a hesitating voice. "And if you don't like to promise, John, you must go a little way off and stop your ears."
But John was not equal to so much self-restraint. If Betty had resisted the temptation of hearing the secret he would have done so too, but he could not possibly let her enjoy the advantage of knowing more than he did. "I promise not to tell," he grunted.
"Ah, that's all very well!" exclaimed Lewis; "but I must see if you two babies can keep a secret. Just put out your hands. Now I am going to pinch your little fingers, and if you cry out it means that you can't be trusted." And pinch he did, and very hard too, but the twins bravely clenched their teeth and said nothing.
When Lewis had teased them to his heart's content, he began his wonderful tale by whispering in a mysterious voice:
"Do you know what Mrs. Howard really is?"
"An old lady," replied Betty very naturally. "Your aunt, perhaps? No? But she looks rather like it, doesn't she?"
"Ah! but she is something quite different really," said Lewis. And after pausing a short time to heighten Betty's curiosity, he added: "She is a witch!"
The twins started back, hardly able to believe their ears. "But there aren't any witches now!" they cried. "Besides, there aren't such things really. They used to be burned, but Miss Thompson says most likely they were only poor old women who couldn't hurt anybody."
"I don't care a bit what Miss Thompson or anybody says," replied Lewis. "Mrs. Howard is an old witch, you can tell that by the black cat that follows her everywhere. That's a sure sign."
Betty hardly knew what to say, for she had once seen a picture of a witch, and there was undoubtedly a black cat crouching in the corner of it.
"You noticed the way she shook her head, I dare say?" continued Lewis, who was delighted by the awestruck looks of his two companions. "Well, she is muttering spells when she does that. She has the power to destroy things if she says the right words. Any morning I may wake up and find the house changed into a heap of dust, or perhaps be struck dead myself."
It seemed impossible that such things should be going on almost within sight of Miss Thompson's schoolroom window. And yet, judging by the gravity of Lewis's face, he was speaking in most sober earnest. John and Betty pressed tighter together, and took hold of each other's hands.
"I hope for your sakes that the old witch won't find out you've been talking to me," continued Lewis solemnly.
"Why what would she do?" Betty ventured to ask.
"That would depend on what sort of a temper she happened to be in," was the reassuring reply.
And then Lewis proceeded to tell such terrible tales about Mrs. Howard's power and malignity, that the poor twins longed to be safely back at home, out of sight of that weird brick house, whose commonplace walls concealed such dreadful deeds of cruelty.
Madge was spending her afternoon in a still more stirring manner than the twins. A shopping expedition to Churchbury was always an excitement, and it was extraordinary how many little purchases seemed absolutely necessary directly the children found out that one of them was going to town.
Madge was heavily laden with money. Five shillings and sevenpence, mostly in coppers, take up a great deal of room. This sum represented the joint property of Madge, Betty, and John. They collected it in a tin money-box shaped like a small doll's house, with a slit in the roof to drop in the pennies. Miss Thompson kept the key of the front-door, and they had to apply to her for it before any money could be taken out. They had made this rule themselves, because they found that unless their money was locked up so that they could not get at it without a little trouble, they used it as soon as it was given them. To-day they had all three asked for the key, and opened the front-door with pleasant anticipations of finding a fortune inside. They were able to judge in some measure of the probable extent of their fortune by the weight of the tin house. Luckily there was no space required for sitting-rooms or stairs inside the house (which was in fact rather a sham, being really nothing better than a box), so that it would hold an almost unlimited quantity of money. Even five shillings and sevenpence did not half fill it.
Of course Madge could not take a tin house with chimneys in her pocket to Churchbury on a shopping expedition, and she signally failed in an attempt to squeeze the money into her purse. Betty and John offered theirs in addition; but at this point she was met by a fresh difficulty, no pocket will hold three purses unnaturally distended with pennies.
"I really do think I had better only take my share and leave you two your own money to spend another day," Madge had observed rather dolefully, for she had been looking forward with some pride to the unusually substantial purchases that the possession of their united fortunes would enable her to make.
But John and Betty would not hear of this suggestion for a moment. They were longing to spend their saved-up hoards of money, and as there was no immediate prospect of their going to Churchbury themselves, they had been counting on Madge returning in the evening laden with interesting purchases.
There was a short period of dismayed silence. Then Betty suddenly broke out: "I know a way! Wait just a second!"
She rushed excitedly off, and returned waving a neat bag of shiny brown calico.
"Why, that's what Nurse made for you to pack your best shoes in when you went away on visits!" exclaimed Madge.
"Yes, it was made out of a bit of lining that was left over from Mama's last winter dress, and it has got a wreathing-string and everything," replied Betty proudly. "It really seems as if Nurse had made it on purpose for a money-bag."
To make a long story short, the brown calico bag appeared so exactly suited to hold the sum of five shillings and sevenpence (mostly in pennies), that it would have been a stupid neglect of opportunities not to use it. Madge quickly emptied the contents of the tin house into their new resting-place, and then started for Churchbury with the comfortable feeling of having practically boundless wealth at her disposal.
Now it happened that Miss Thompson had several errands of a peculiarly uninteresting nature to do in the town, as Mrs. West had asked her to buy a number of things for the household. Generally the children enjoyed being inside any sort of shop, but after watching Miss Thompson carefully select dusters and pantry-clothes, cotton, tape, and buttons, for what appeared an interminable time, Madge sighed deeply.
"If you are tired of sitting still you may go outside and look at the shop windows," said Miss Thompson. "I have not nearly finished yet, and it fidgets me to hear you sighing in such a despairing way."
"It's only because I'm afraid of not having time to buy all the things we want if we stay here so long," explained Madge.
"Why, what do you want?"
"Oh, Miss Thompson! You know we have five shillings and sevenpence to spend!" cried Madge reproachfully. "And we all want a nice thing apiece out of it, and one or two little extra things if there is money enough."
"And you have not yet decided on what you are going to buy, I suppose," said Miss Thompson; "and are waiting to choose until you get into the right sort of shop?"
Madge admitted that this was the case.
"But if I may go outside and walk up and down the street, I dare say I shall find something in the windows by the time you are ready," she added.
Miss Thompson thought this rather a good plan, as she knew from past experience what a very long time it always took the children to decide on how to lay out their money to the best advantage. So after Madge had been solemnly warned not to wander far, she was allowed to go out in the street by herself for a few minutes.
It was an exciting moment when the little girl found herself walking sedately up the pavement alone. She had never been quite so independent before in her life, and she hoped that the passers-by all noticed there was not any grown-up person in charge of her. But they were mostly too occupied to take any interest in this event. Possibly there were so many little girls in Churchbury that the appearance of one extra did not strike people as particularly remarkable.
At any rate Madge herself felt all the importance of the occasion. She walked soberly along with the heavy little brown bag hanging from her wrist by its string. Secured in this way, there was no chance of her forgetting its existence and leaving it on the counter of a shop. She had done this once with a purse, and Miss Thompson had been obliged to go back to most of the places where she had been shopping before she could recover it for Madge. But a brown bag tied firmly round the wrist of its owner really seemed safe from any sort of accident.
Madge had no wish to wander far away, but unfortunately the dulness of the large linen-draper's shop that she had just left seemed to pervade its neighbours on either side; for about fifty yards there was nothing to be seen but highly respectable and uninteresting tailors' and shoemakers' establishments. Thus it came about that Madge walked almost to the end of the street before she found a shop window that held any objects of the kind for which she was looking. At last she stopped in front of a small stationer's. There, arranged among the piles of writing-paper and envelopes, were a quantity of little ornaments and toys.
Madge was growing rather old to care about regular playthings, and yet she could not resist the charms of a tiny doll's dressing-table covered with miniature hair-brushes and combs. She wondered how much it cost, and whether Betty would want to share it with her.
"John won't care for it, I suppose," she muttered to herself. "At least he will think it grander to pretend that he doesn't like such a girlish thing, though I dare say he will always be wanting to play with it. After all, one can't choose things that will suit everybody, and I know I could make such a dear little pin-cushion to stand on that table, with very small pins stuck into it in a pattern. I've got a bit of silk that would do exactly—Oh! What has happened? Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
Poor Madge! While thinking over the various ways in which she could amuse herself with the doll's dressing-table, she had been excitedly swinging the little brown bag up and down by the string. Five shillings and sevenpence, mostly in pennies, is rather heavy; an insecurely tied knot gave way, and the bag suddenly fell with a loud clatter—not to the ground, that would have been a very bearable misfortune, but through a grating in the pavement on which Madge happened to be standing at the moment.
It does not often fall to a person's lot to drop his whole fortune down a grating into someone else's cellar. It seemed to Madge as if no such terrible fate had ever overtaken a human being before. If the brown bag had contained nothing but her own money, she would have preferred leaving it where it fell, to making a fuss about recovering it. She could not bear to be thought stupid, and yet it did not seem very clever to have lost the bag of which she was professing to take so much care. But as Betty's and John's money had also disappeared down the dark grating, it seemed quite hopeless to hush the matter up. They would naturally question her until they found out the truth, and then loudly express their opinion of her selfishness if she had not made every possible effort to recover their missing property.
Madge looked despairingly down the street in the hope of seeing Miss Thompson, but only an unceasing stream of strangers passed and repassed the spot where she stood. Then she stooped down and peered through the grating. It was so dark down below that she could not distinguish the bag; only, of course, having seen it fall, and even heard the clatter of some of the coins as they rolled out, she knew it must be there. She did not like to leave the spot and go back to Miss Thompson. It seemed as if the money would be more likely to disappear in her absence; although she could not really take care of it by standing on top of the grating, yet she felt as if she could.
While hesitating what to do next, Madge happened to look through the window of the stationer's shop, and saw an elderly woman sitting behind the counter. She had spectacles on her nose, and such a very mild appearance that Madge at last decided to go in and explain the whole matter to her. If the woman would only let her run down to the cellar and pick up the money, nobody at home need ever know anything about the silly accident.