If a stranger had happened to meet Madge, Betty, and John one fine Saturday afternoon a few weeks later in the summer, he would probably have imagined that they were hurrying to the sea-side. It was certainly an odd way to get there, across the fields and through a grove of beech-trees; but where else could they be going, each carrying a boat?
They passed by the Eagle's Nest for once without even glancing up at it, and walking a little farther along the field stopped by a deep ditch. Now, even during the hottest summer weather this delightful ditch seldom became completely dry. A tiny stream generally contrived to trickle along the bottom, pushing its way in and out among the dead leaves and sticks that the wind blew into its course. During the winter months the ditch sometimes got blocked with this sort of rubbish, and then the water being kept back very rapidly rose and flooded over the field. However, old Barton was always on the look-out for accidents, and on extra wet days generally marched out with a sack over his shoulders to keep them comparatively dry, and cleared away the drifts of dead leaves with his spade so that the stream should flow freely. Of course, the children would have loved to accompany him on these expeditions, but they always took place on such wet days that the thing was not to be thought of seriously.
But though the children were never allowed to help in moderating a regular winter flood, they valued the ditch highly as a place where they could always collect enough water to sail their boats in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. They had done it so often that they did not take very long time in setting to work. Betty and John going down on their knees began to build the mud and dead leaves at the bottom of the ditch into a great barrier across the narrowest part, while Madge with a stick cleared the course of the stream from all obstructions above. It was the way in which they made tiny ponds in the cracks of the big stones under the laburnum-tree, only of course this was hundreds of times larger.
The water soon began to rise. It is most surprising what a lot of water even a tiny stream contains if one can once prevent it from all running away! When the ditch was about half-full, the children launched their boats and made them go imaginary voyages from port to port, carrying merchandise.
"I will be London," said Madge, "and Betty can be Cardiff, and—"
"I can choose for myself without your help!" interrupted John peevishly. "I'll be Birmingham."
"Oh, you choose very cleverly for yourself!" jeered Madge. "I wonder how you can think of such difficult places!"
"You think nobody can be clever except yourself, but you are finely mistaken," rejoined John seriously; and he could not imagine why both his sisters burst out laughing. "There isn't much joke that I can see in that," he said.
"The joke is about Birmingham, you know," explained Betty. "It isn't a port."
"Then it ought to be," said John decidedly.
"Perhaps you had better write to the Queen and suggest that it should be made into one," remarked Madge. But then, seeing that her brother looked vexed at his mistake, she continued cheerfully: "I have thought of a new and much better plan. We will not have real towns, but we will call them after our own names—Madgebury, Bettybury, and Johnbury!"
This idea gave very general satisfaction, and the game proceeded most peacefully for some time. A vessel laden with acorns started from Madgebury and went to Johnbury, crossing on the way another ship full of horse-chestnuts. From Bettybury a small wooden doll set out on a voyage of discovery into unknown regions, the owners carefully superintending the course of their vessels and guiding them by long strings. Once the strings got entangled and there was a terrific shipwreck in Johnbury harbour, most of the cargo, consisting of marbles, being lost in the mud at the bottom. After this collision it was discovered that the sails of two of the vessels were injured, so the ship-owners decided to retire for a short time to Eagle's Nest and work at some necessary repairs.
It was a warm afternoon, and the shade of the great spreading beech-tree was particularly pleasant after an hour spent in the glaring sun by the ditch. The children sat about in idle lounging attitudes, mending their boats and talking in a leisurely fashion.
"I wish I hadn't lost all those marbles," remarked John mournfully. "I only found four, and I believe there were quite eight in the ship, only the mud was so soft they sank out of sight at once. I squeezed it all over with my hands to try and find them, but I couldn't."
"I should think you will lose those four as well, if you try and carry them in your pocket," said Madge. "Don't you remember what a big hole you have in it, and how your knife dropped on the schoolroom floor this morning when you were saying your lessons?"
"But I must put them somewhere," answered John peevishly. "I can't leave them behind, and I can't carry them in my hand when I am mending my ship."
"I've got a capital idea!" broke in Betty. "We will have a treasure-house in the Eagle's Nest, and we can safely hide away the things we don't want there. And I see just the place that will do!" With an excited cry she scrambled up to a hole in the tree a few feet above the platform of sticks on which they sat. "Isn't this the very place?" she shouted.
"The very place! The very place!" echoed John; and immediately the three children began to empty out their pockets and decide what they would leave in the Eagle's Nest storehouse. John's marbles and various small articles belonging to the girls, such as pencils, both slate and lead, a broken knife, and a doll's boot, were carefully stored away packed in dock leaves.
"We can leave them there all right," said Madge. "Even if it rains they can't get wet in this beautiful hole. It's a regular out-of-door cupboard, and I shall keep lots of my things here now that we have found it."
This plan was so incomparably more interesting than putting one's possessions back tamely in the schoolroom or nursery, that the hole was soon filled with oddly-shaped parcels tied up in leaves and twists of grass.
"That's done!" exclaimed Madge at last with a sigh of satisfaction, as she covered the opening to the hole with an enormous bunch of elder flowers, which she fondly hoped looked so natural that no passing enemy would suspect they concealed a treasure-house. "Now shall we go back and sail our boats or—Oh, look!" her voice rose to a shriek. And well it might.
Quite taken up with their present occupation, the children had entirely forgotten the fact that they had left the ditch blocked, so that the stream could not flow away as usual. The water had been rising for the last hour or more, and all one end of the field was rapidly turning into a swamp. Rivulets of water were finding their way in and out among the rank tufts of long grass, and at this rate Eagle's Nest itself would be surrounded by the evening.
It was a moment of most intense excitement. There were hurried consultations among the children, and even a daring suggestion that the flood should be allowed to rise until they were left upon an impregnable island. But a certain longing for tea, combined with a wholesome dread of Barton, prevented this alarmingly bold scheme from being carried out.
"If we had only known what was going to happen and brought provisions with us, what fun it would have been to stay here all night!" cried Madge, who dearly loved an adventure. "I think if I had brought the piece of bread that they put by the side of my plate at dinner, and that I never eat, it would have been enough to keep me alive all night."
"I should like sandwiches better," observed John.
"Very likely!" rejoined Madge impatiently. "Honey and cream are very nice too, and just what people always carry with them when they are out all night in a forest!"
"They would be very good, but much stickier than sandwiches," began John, then stopped as both his sisters burst out laughing. "I don't see anything funny," he said sulkily. "They are very sticky, you know they are!"
"We were laughing at your idea of having all sorts of nice things to eat when you were escaping from the enemy," explained Betty. "It's a time for hardships—"
"I don't care to live on hardships," interrupted John.
"Well, it doesn't matter, because I think we had better go home to tea after all," observed Madge. "I don't really mind Barton complaining about us much; and it would have been frightful fun to sit in the Eagle's Nest and see everybody on the other side of the water scolding and threatening us without being able to get at us. But I dare say Mama would have been rather anxious about our staying out all night in the damp."
Though troublesome and thoughtless the children were really affectionate, and this consideration weighed with them. They gave up all idea of allowing the advancing torrent to cut them off from any communication with the world. (When we talk of the torrent, it must be understood that it might not have appeared quite worthy of the name to grown-up people; but that is how the children managed to see it.)
Having decided to resist the temptation of camping-out for a night, the next question was how to avoid getting into serious trouble with Barton, who would be dreadfully cross if he came in the morning and found the field turned into a swamp. It was all very well for Madge to talk defiantly about not minding if Barton scolded or not; but the fact was that everybody, even Captain West, stood in respectful awe of the old man's stern disapproval.
"I do wish you children would not be so disobedient to me before Barton. I can see he thinks you are spoilt, and it makes me feel so dreadfully ashamed of myself!" Captain West would laughingly say; and though, of course, this was only a joke, there can be little doubt that Barton would have brought up a family very strictly if it had been left to him.
"We can't go home and leave it like this," said Madge, looking round despairingly on the ever-widening circle of glistening wet that was spreading through the grass.
"If we took away the mud that we put across the ditch, would not the stream run down the ditch again as usual?" suggested John.
"Of course, we all know that! But who can get through the water to clear it out?" cried Betty.
There was an anxious pause. Then suddenly in a tone of solemn resolution Madge announced that she was once more ready to take the post of danger.
"You will get your boots wet through, and catch cold," said Betty nervously.
Without replying to this remonstrance Madge climbed down from the Eagle's Nest. It was the work of a moment to remove not only her boots but also her stockings. Then she plunged into the soaking grass, the water splashing up round her bare feet at every step. It was a wet job, and a dirty one, but Madge accomplished it safely, and Barton never guessed next day how near he had been to finding the meadow flooded.
The treasure-house in Eagle's Nest did not turn out quite such a happy idea as was anticipated. For a few days after causing the ditch to overflow the children rather avoided that part of the fields. It seemed prudent not to give Barton any occasion to connect them in his mind with the extra muddiness of the corner between Eagle's Nest and the ditch. But when nearly a week had passed by without any awkward inquiries being made, and it was considered safe to return to their old haunts, an unpleasant surprise awaited them. Some of their carefully-stored-away possessions were missing!
John's marbles could nowhere be found. This was a most unfortunate fact; but when, after a hurried turning out of the contents of the treasure-house, it became apparent that a pencil also belonging to John was missing, there was a positive uproar. Betty had only lost an old pocket-book with all the leaves torn out, and she was not even quite sure that she had ever put it into the hole. Madge had lost nothing.
"I do say it's a shame!" shouted John positively, dancing about on the platform of the Eagle's Nest with rage. "It's a horrid shame! All my things are lost, and—"
"If you stamp so hard your foot will stick in the cracks of the floor, like the dwarf in the fairy-story," interrupted Madge.
"Oh, it's all very well to laugh! Laugh away!" shouted John. "That's just like you! Put in all your own things safely enough, and left mine out! And then you laugh. But I won't stand being bullied by a great ugly thing—" Here his voice fortunately became choked with angry sobs.
"What is the matter? What nonsense you are talking!" exclaimed Madge impatiently. "All the things were put into the hole at the same time. You saw me do it yourself, because I happened to be nearest to the treasure-house."
"And I believe I saw you pushing my things on one side to make room for your own!" rejoined John. "And very likely you slily took some of mine out and threw them away, so that the hole should not be too full."
"Well, if you believe all that you must be a little idiot!" said Madge scornfully; and Betty cried: "How can you say such things? Of course she wouldn't!"
"I think she would," asserted John, with irritating obstinacy. "She thinks she can do as she likes with us and our things. Lewis often says—"
"So it is Lewis who has been putting all these stupid ideas into your head?" interrupted Madge. "I could not think why you had become so discontented and grumbling all of a sudden! Now I see what it is, and I'll never speak to that sneak again!"
"He is a very nice boy, very nice indeed," repeated John. "And I like talking to him much better than playing with girls."
"You are welcome to him, I'm sure!" exclaimed Madge tempestuously. "A horrid sneak who used to be always laughing at you little ones to me, and calling you silly babies! And then directly my back is turned for an afternoon, he goes trying to set you against me. No, I don't want him coming sucking up to me any more, that's certain!" And a good deal more of the same sort; for when Madge was indignant, she had an extraordinary flow of very forcible but inelegant language. "Now for my part I'm going away from here directly," she concluded. "John will stop and tell tales to his friend, I suppose. Betty can do as she likes."
Betty did not look as grateful as she might for this kind permission. She was a peace-loving little person, and always particularly disliked being called upon to take sides in family disputes.
"Can't we all go away and play together just as we used to, before we knew Lewis?" she said at last. "We really had more fun then than we have now, because we were not always afraid that something would be found out."
"You are quite right!" answered Madge heartily. "We built this Eagle's Nest to play in, didn't we? But now, instead of playing we are always watching and waiting for Lewis, and when he comes we can't have any fun, because if we make a noise somebody may catch us. It seems rather a sneaking business altogether."
Betty was quite of this opinion. If she had not been drawn on by her elder sister's enthusiasm in the first instance, she would never have done anything so boldly naughty as to make friends with a strange boy. The constant fear of discovery had weighed heavily upon her, and on more than one occasion lately she had trembled all over if anyone had called her suddenly, thinking that the whole affair was discovered and she was about to be blamed. "Yes, do let us play somewhere else. And then perhaps Lewis will get tired of coming to look for us," she said fervently.
"At first I was sorry for him," continued Madge, "and I should be now, only he is so mean. Of course I shall never betray him to anybody, and get him punished for climbing over the wall. But I won't speak to him after he has proved a sneak!"
In the end Madge and Betty went off together to play elsewhere, while John remained behind in the Eagle's Nest, saying that he should wait there for his friend. But it was not very cheerful work sitting alone on a bough in sight of that terrible red brick house, after the girls had disappeared. He would gladly have climbed down and ran after them, if he had not boasted so loudly of his preference for Lewis's society. And when Lewis at last came he was not a very cheery companion. John tried to feel flattered at being left alone with such a big boy, and to get all the comfort he could out of his companion's abuse of girls in general, and Madge in particular. But when Lewis began to tell long dreary stories about the cruel doings that went on under Mrs. Howard's roof, the small listener soon realized that the presence of a strong and courageous elder sister would be very comforting indeed. He tried to keep up his spirits by reflecting that there was no fear of his being entrapped from the Beechgrove side of the wall.
"Ah! Don't you make too sure of that," said Lewis. "The last boy Mrs. Howard stole was bigger than you, I think."
"Does she steal children, then?" cried John in terrified accents. "I didn't know anybody could do that nowadays! Why don't the police stop her?"
"That's just the question! My belief is that she's more artful than a whole army of police," answered Lewis. "I don't know how it's done of course, but I expect that man with a gray beard wanders about the road after dark and catches them as they are going home from school, perhaps in the evening—"
"Catches them? What does he catch?" interrupted John.
"Why, catches boys about your size, of course! I've just said so, haven't I? How stupid you are!" answered Lewis, speaking quite as contemptuously as Madge in her most overbearing moods. "And then they are locked into the cellars under the house.—Chained? Oh yes! hand and foot. Gags in their mouths too, if they groan loudly enough to be heard. I know the sound when I am awake at night. Mrs. Howard calls it the wind in the chimneys, but I know better than that."
"But what does she want boys for?" asked John in a trembling voice.
"Nobody knows. Perhaps she sells them as slaves to the black people, just as black people used to be sold to white. Perhaps she keeps them prisoners for life in her cellars. Nobody knows." Lewis began to whistle, and positively declined to give any further information.
"I think I'll go home, it's getting rather late," said John presently. "And very likely I sha'n't be able to come here to-morrow to meet you. It doesn't seem quite safe to come every day if that dreadful man is always on the look-out. Besides, I don't think I shall have much time after lessons, some days we dig in our gardens."
"You aren't afraid to come without your sisters, I suppose? It looks remarkably like it," said Lewis disagreeably.
"No! of course not!" cried John, as he hurriedly scrambled out of the tree.
In another moment he was in full flight home. It did not require much persuasion on Betty's part that evening to convince him that, after all, one's own brothers and sisters are much safer and pleasanter companions than any chance strangers.
"But," concluded Betty, "though Lewis talks so much about the dangers he goes through I don't believe he is half as brave as Madge. See how she plunged into that water the other day without hesitating an instant, though it was very cold, for my hands were quite blue after sailing my boat. It's so odd how water keeps cold even in the summer! But I don't think Lewis could have done it. He made such a fuss when he scratched his hand with a sharp stone in the wall one day. Of course he is very brave about being shut up in those dreadful cellars; only I don't think they can be quite so dreadful as he pretends, or nobody could bear them."
"Don't you think it is quite true about the cellars, then?" asked John, eagerly grasping at a ray of hope. If the cellars were not dungeons swarming with toads, then there might also be some mistake about little boys being stolen and sold as slaves to black people. So he waited anxiously for Betty's opinion on the subject.
"Well, I suppose it is true that he is shut up in those dark places," she replied thoughtfully; "because, you see, he can tell us all about them; the slimy walls I mean, and the black pools of dirty water. Only I don't believe he is quite as brave as he makes out. I dare say he cries and screams when he is locked in."
This answer did not do much to calm John's fears. After some natural hesitation at owning himself in the wrong, he said shyly:
"I don't think I care so very much about Lewis after all. He bullies just as much as Madge, and doesn't play such amusing games either."
"No, indeed he doesn't!" chimed in Betty eagerly. "It was much more amusing before we knew him, and there was no hiding things and being afraid of being found out. It doesn't seem right when we are trusted to go out by ourselves—"
"Oh, I don't know about that!" interrupted John. "I can't see any harm in it, not for me at least, because I am a boy, and boys don't stop to ask whether they may speak to people. I dare say you and Madge ought not to have done it, as you are girls. But," he added, rather less grandly, "I think I will play with you to-morrow instead of going to talk to Lewis. That's to say, I will come if Madge won't be nasty and disagreeable."
"Of course she won't! I'll talk to her about it, and she will be right enough when she hears you are not going to follow Lewis any more!" cried Betty, rejoicing in the prospect of the good time coming when they would once more all three play harmoniously together, without the interference of any mischief-making stranger.
It was many weeks since the children had started out in such high spirits as they did on the following afternoon. As long as they were secretly meeting Lewis, there was always a certain mystery about their doings which, though at first very exciting, soon became oppressive. They were in the main truthful, straightforward children, and when they were tempted first to talk to Lewis, and then to promise secrecy about having done so, they had not foreseen what an amount of concealment this conduct would give rise to in the future. Often when chattering about their doings before Miss Thompson or their parents, references to Lewis and his wonderful tales nearly slipped out, and the subject had to be awkwardly changed. Once or twice questions were asked to which the children, though they avoided telling downright falsehoods in reply, yet gave wilfully misleading answers. And they had been sufficiently well brought-up for this course of little deceptions to make them feel thoroughly uncomfortable.
It was a real relief to have done with Lewis and all concealment, and to be starting off boldly to play their old games, which, though a little noisy and rough, were admittedly innocent. Sometimes they were explorers discovering the source of the Nile; another day they would be an eager party of adventurers hunting for gold in Australia. In either case they carried long sticks and shouted the whole time. To-day, as it happened, they were big-game hunters, looking out for giraffes, elephants, and an occasional lion. They expected to find them behind the hay-ricks or in the poultry-yard; failing those likely spots, they would try the cow-house.
"I hope my new rifle will act to-day," observed Madge, shouldering a pea-stick with great dignity. "Last time I was out it missed fire, and I lost a fine buck in the forest."
This piece of information was received with perfect gravity by the other children. The only way to enjoy games properly is to be quite serious about them.
"I have slain twenty wolves with this spear!" cried John suddenly.
"But that's no reason why you should poke my eye out with it!" exclaimed Betty, seizing the rough end of a long stick that was being brandished close to her head.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Your cheek is bleeding. Let's look!" and John proceeded to examine his handiwork with more apparent interest than regret.
"It's nothing! A miss is as good as a mile!" answered Betty impatiently, as she scrubbed her cheek with a dirty handkerchief. It was considered a great breach of etiquette to acknowledge that one was hurt when playing a game. At lessons, on the contrary, a little fuss about a scratch or bruise was allowable, because it took up time which otherwise would have been devoted to study.
"Hist! Go gently! We are tracking the wild boar to his lair!" muttered Madge. "Conceal yourselves from view behind the brushwood and creep after me."
Now, a mere ordinary grown-up person would have been puzzled how to carry out this order in a field where the grass was only about an inch long. He would have looked in vain for any shelter behind which even to hide his boots; he would in fact have been deplorably dense and literal. The three children did not hesitate for a minute. They slouched their hats forward over their faces, that being a concealment behind which it was recognized that no wild boar would be likely to penetrate; and they bent their knees into a fancied imitation of the attitude of an Indian on the war-path. This was the established mode of attacking a herd of wild animals.
"Halt! They have caught sight of us! Make ready your weapons!" cried Madge in a sort of suppressed shout. "They are preparing to charge! Look out!"
If the six black Berkshire pigs lying asleep in the sun under the wall were really preparing to charge they dissembled their purpose remarkably well. Half opening their tiny eyes they blinked lazily at their assailants, and it was not until they had received several sharp pokes from the long sticks that they would move from the spot where they were lying. Even then they only tottered a few steps farther off, and sank down again in a great heaving sleepy mass.
"If we threw a few stones at them perhaps they would run?" suggested John.
"Better not," said Madge; "supposing Barton saw us he would be sure to say we were hurting them."
"I only meant small ones, of course," answered John; "but I dare say he would make a fuss and tell Papa some long story, just as he did about our hunting the cows when we were only trying to catch the calf. He always thinks things are so much worse than they are really. But how shall we move the pigs without stones?"
Even Madge could not suggest a remedy for the pigs' excessive drowsiness. Words, or rather shouts, seemed thrown away upon their dull ears, and more active interference was impossible with Barton hovering in the neighbourhood. The chase threatened to come to a stand-still, when Betty burst into an agitated war-cry.
"The enemy are upon us! No, I forgot! The elephants, I mean! They are galloping towards us! We shall be overwhelmed!"
She waved her stick defiantly as she screamed, in the spirit of one prepared to perish sooner than surrender.
This time the alarm had sufficient foundation in fact to be very exciting. A young heifer, attracted by the noise, and probably thinking that it had some connection with Barton and hay, set off trotting across the field, followed at a discreet pace by all the milking-cows. In the distance, with the help of a little imagination, they made quite a formidable array.
"We are outnumbered! There is no dishonour in flight!" shouted Madge in the grand phrases gained from books, that were always employed on these occasions. "Rush for the fort!" she continued. "The fort under the oak-tree!"
The children needed no further instructions. They had well-established settlements under several of the trees, consisting of fallen branches that had been chopped into logs and piled in a heap to remain there until wanted. In a few minutes more they were defying elephants and everything else from the summit of a log-pile fully five feet high, their backs planted firmly against the solid trunk of the oak-tree. So safe did they feel that it was annoying of the cows not to come on faster, and they took it as nothing short of a direct insult when the leading heifer, to whom they had all along alluded as a mad bull, gave up the pursuit and began quietly to eat.
"There's no spirit in anything, elephants or bulls! I never saw anything like it!" said Madge in a tone of utter disgust. "If they won't run away how can one hunt them?"
"But what is that coming in and out of the farmyard doorway? It isn't there always," said John, screwing up his eyes and trying to see across the field in the blinding sunshine.
"I think it's a dog! I am almost sure it is," observed Betty nervously. "I do hope it is not a mad dog that has strayed in off the road."
"That's not very likely," laughed Madge. "There aren't many mad dogs on the road, in fact I know people are obliged to keep them shut up at home, or muzzled, or—"
"Yes, I dare say that is the rule. But suppose this one had escaped without anybody noticing him?" said Betty, who was very much afraid of dogs; "and suppose he smelt us out, and followed us down here?"
"Well, I should just pat him on the head," said Madge loftily. "You can make friends with any dog if you aren't afraid of him."
"I say!" exclaimed John suddenly. "It's that brute belonging to the butcher, that bit the postman. He is wandering about the field, I can see him quite plainly. The butcher must be in the yard talking to Barton about buying the calf. I think we had better run back to the house." Even the courageous Madge prepared to act on this suggestion. They had been warned never to go near the butcher's dog, and it really seemed almost beyond the bounds of sport to wait patiently until he chose to bite them.
"We will run for the house!" cried Madge, rather enjoying the excitement. "Now, off!"
As is often the case, Betty, being the most nervous and anxious to get away, made a false start, her foot slipped between two logs of wood and remained firmly jammed. "Oh stop! stop!" she cried, as the others, not noticing her misfortune, were hurrying away across the field in the direction of home. "I can't get out! Don't run away!" she wailed frantically, twisting and tugging at her foot, but only succeeding in hurting her ankle rather severely.
The large dog, who had up to this time contented himself with sniffing about at the top of the field near the yard where his master was standing, being attracted by the noise now began prowling like a wolf nearer and nearer to the oak-tree. Betty, looking up from an ineffectual struggle to roll the logs farther apart, saw him half-way across the field towards her, and gave a terrific scream.
"What's that?" cried Madge, checking herself and looking back. "Why, Betty has never come! What's the matter?" While speaking she had turned and was rushing back towards her younger sister.
"The dog is coming! Look! He is coming!" shrieked Betty, almost frantic with fright.
"I'll keep him off! Trust me!" gasped Madge, breathless with running, as she posted herself in front of the logs, waving her stick like a battle-axe. Her courage was undeniable, and fortunately her strength was not put to any proof, as the butcher, hearing terrified cries, stepped outside the yard and whistled to his dog.
"There! it has turned round! It is running back to its master! Barton is there, so he will take care that it doesn't follow us again. I dare say it would not have bitten, though," said Madge soothingly, as Betty sobbed on her shoulder.
John came up at this moment, and they both tried to push the heavy logs away, but could not move them an inch, even with all their strength. At one time it really seemed as if Betty must remain there all night.
"It's no use pulling any more," panted Madge, scarlet from her efforts. "I shall run up to Papa's workshop and get his little axe. Then I can chop away the log enough for her to get out."
Possibly Betty was terrified by the prospect of having an axe wielded by alarmingly energetic but unskilled hands too near her foot. At all events she not only dried her tears at this suggestion, but twisted her ankle so actively about that it slipped out of the crack as mysteriously as it had gone in. There was no harm done, except various bruises which had been chiefly caused by her efforts to escape.
In spite of some natural disappointment at not having any occasion to exhibit her powers as a woodcutter, Madge congratulated her sister heartily on getting loose, and the three children returned towards the house. Miss Thompson was looking for them in the garden. They ran up to her, concluding that as usual they were late for tea and she had come to remind them of it.
"For once you are wrong," she said. "At least it is just tea-time, but that was not why I was trying to find you. Now wash your hands, brush your hair, and go to the schoolroom. There you will find three visitors."
The children were far quicker than usual in carrying out Miss Thompson's directions and preparing themselves for tea. They were exceedingly curious to see the visitors, who, contrary to all custom, seemed to have been shown into the school-room instead of the drawing-room. And yet they were also a little shy, so that there was none of the usual crowding at the doorway in trying who should enter first. The younger ones very contentedly stood aside and allowed Madge to take the lead without a murmur.
An elderly person, in a large black velvet bonnet, sat with her back to the window, a very gaily-dressed little girl standing by her side. The children looked vacantly from one to the other, wondering why they had come.
"Well, Madge!" exclaimed Miss Thompson, "how much longer are you going to stand there before you speak to Mrs. Winter, who has come all the way from Churchbury to bring you a present?"
"Of course it's Mrs. Winter!" cried Madge, who had really been completely mystified by the presence of the best black velvet bonnet, so unlike the rather shabby straw hat in which Mrs. Winter had helped to search for the missing brown bag.
"And this is Mrs. Winter's grandchild," continued Miss Thompson. "Her name is Ann—"
"Is that Ann?" cried three excited voices; and the children pressed eagerly forward to have a good look at the little girl who, though scarcely older than themselves, was frequently left in charge of a real shop.
Ann was a large solid-looking girl of thirteen, in a red cashmere frock that was hardly as bright as her plump cheeks. Her hair had evidently been plaited very tightly overnight, so that it stood out in a frizzled mass all round her head. The whole effect was very large and bright.
"I have brought you a new pet," said Mrs. Winter addressing Madge; "something you have seen before, but it looks rather different now." She opened a large basket that was on the floor beside her, and lifted out a pretty tortoise-shell cat.
"What a love!" cried Madge. "Is it the kitten we found in the cellar? But it looks quite big and fat now, only the colour is the same."
"Ah, it's wonderful what care and good feeding will do for any animal!" observed Mrs. Winter. "You remember how scared the poor creature was at first? Well, now she is so tame that she will sit on my shoulder. Just see."
While the cat exhibited two or three little tricks, such as standing on her hind legs to eat a bit of bread, Mrs. Winter explained that she had always intended to make a present of the pretty creature to the young lady who had been so frightened by her in the cellar.
"So, this being early-closing day in the town, I borrowed Mrs. Smith's pony-trap and drove out, bringing little Ann with me for company," she said.
"And Mrs. West wishes you to rest and have some tea before you return," added Miss Thompson. "So let us all sit down at once, and Pussy shall have a saucer to herself in the corner of the room."
When tea was finished the children asked permission to show Ann their gardens, and pick her a bunch of flowers before she returned to the town. Mrs. Winter preferred sitting indoors in the shade, until her grandchild was ready to start.
It must be owned that as long as they were in the schoolroom Ann had proved disappointingly dull. Instead of enlightening them on her method of keeping shop when she was left in sole charge, she sat stolidly munching cake, and hardly replying when she was spoken to by Miss Thompson. In point of fact poor Ann was rendered desperately shy by being dressed up in all her finest clothes to come on this important visit. All the way to Beechgrove her grandmother had been warning her that she must behave beautifully if they were asked to go inside the house, and the consequence was that the poor girl was almost afraid to speak, for fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. But when once in the garden her shyness of the young ladies rapidly faded away.
"Do you ever climb trees or sail boats in ditches?" inquired Madge, when they had at last got on easy conversational terms with their visitor.
Ann explained that there were only a limited number of trees in Churchbury, and that the police forbid any interference with them. "Of course some of the children sail their boats in the gutters after a storm," she added; "but Mother wouldn't like us to do that. She always makes us keep ourselves to ourselves."
"But here it's quite different!" broke in Madge. "We do just what we like, only there is rather a fuss if we tear our clothes very badly. You might begin on an easy tree."
"Perhaps she would like to see the pigs and cows first?" interposed Betty, who could not help noticing that their guest showed some natural reluctance to risk the red cashmere frock among unknown and probably prickly branches.
Ann had been afraid to say that she did not at all wish to climb trees, but she eagerly grasped at this chance of a reprieve, and they all set off towards the pig-sty. Now the young Wests always regarded the little farmyard over which Barton presided as far the most interesting part of Beechgrove. If their mother had visitors she invariably took them to see the greenhouses, a dull sort of entertainment, as it seemed to the children. Certainly some people would stand for half an hour in front of a row of pots asking questions and reading the names on wooden labels. It seemed incredible that they should derive amusement from this monotonous performance, so the children concluded that they did it merely because some such absurd custom was demanded by good manners of all guests. Now, looking at the pigs was quite a different affair. There was some pleasure to be got out of that, and as Ann stood on tiptoe to peep over the wooden door of the sty they felt convinced that they were giving her an unusual treat.
Unfortunately, one has to be accustomed to pigs to appreciate them properly. When a gigantic old sow was at last lured out of her sleeping apartment by a shower of acorns, artfully thrown against her flabby sides, the Wests shrieked with delight because she was followed by her whole family.
"I never saw them all out before although they are nearly a month old," observed Madge, wishing delicately to impress upon the stranger that she was unusually lucky.
"We never saw them all out before," echoed John. "You see there are three in the trough, and one all sticky who has just crawled out, that makes four. Then there are five squeezed up in the mud behind the sow's back and two under her snout, so you can see the whole eleven at once. She had thirteen, but two of them were squashed to death the first day. Barton found them both flat; he says she must have slept on top of them by mistake. Our sows generally do when they have a lot of children."
"Do you notice that little black one with a white patch under his right eye?" inquired Betty, feeling that it was now her turn to do the honours of the pig-sty. "We call him Spot. He is such a little love, only horribly greedy. That is why he is in such a mess, he will crawl in the trough and get covered with milk. Sometimes Barton brings him outside for us to pat. I wonder if we could possibly get him for ourselves if we poked the sow off with sticks so that she shouldn't push through the door when it is opened?"
"Oh, don't try! Please don't open the door!" begged Ann. "I couldn't bear to have those horrid smelly creatures coming after me. I know I should scream if they got loose!"
"Don't you like pigs, then?" This inquiry came in tones of astonishment from all three children.
"Like them? No! They smell that horrid it quite upsets me!" Poor Ann's disgust was so genuine that she quite forgot to speak as correctly as she had succeeded in doing up to this point.
It was in vain that the Wests pointed out how baby pigs are quite as pretty as kittens or puppies when they roll playfully over on their mother's fat sides. Ann only held her nose and turned away her face; even when Spot went through the most ridiculous antics, pulling his little brother Whitey all about the sty by his tail, she expressed no admiration.
"Well, if you really don't like them I suppose we had better go and see the cows," said Madge rather impatiently. It is always disappointing, and gives very unnecessary trouble, when visitors will not share one's own tastes. Madge had relied on the pigs as an enormous attraction to a town child, and she was proportionately irritated when the entertainment failed. "I suppose you don't think cows dirty?" she asked with elaborate politeness.
No, Ann had no objection to cows. On the contrary, she knew a milkman who kept some cows on the outskirts of the town, and she sometimes went there and had a tumbler of new milk for a treat. To be sure she felt a little timid when Madge pushed a cabbage into her hand, and told her to feed a large red cow with particularly sharp horns. The children had a habit of each adopting a cow and feeding it themselves when there were any cabbages or pea-stalks to spare. Every cow, of course, had a name.
"That red one is quite new. She only came on Saturday," observed John. "So we haven't yet settled who she is to belong to, and that is why you can feed her. But we are going to call her Spiteful, because she shakes her head so crossly and has such very sharp horns."
This was rather a formidable introduction to a cow, and it is not to be wondered at that Ann soon incurred the scorn of the other children by dropping her cabbage on the ground and retiring behind the railings. She afterwards accused Spiteful of having tried to bite her.
"Well, if you don't care for feeding the animals perhaps you would like to play in the hay-loft?" said Madge with calm patience.
"Oh, yes! That is just what I should like!" cried Ann eagerly. A loft seemed to present fewer possibilities of danger than any of the other places of amusement to which they had yet taken her.
There was a little difficulty about climbing a ladder out of the yard. Ann was awkward, and the red cashmere dress being rather long she continually tripped over it. But when they had once safely reached the loft they had a grand game of play among the great heaps of hay and straw, scattering them untidily all over the neatly-swept floor in a way that was certain to drive Barton almost wild whenever he discovered it.
The distant ringing of a large bell at last broke in upon the children's shouts.
"That is to call us," explained Madge. "They always ring it when we are out in the fields and forget tea. But it can't be tea now because we have had it. I expect Mrs. Winter wants to go home."
"Oh, whatever will Grandmama say when she sees my dress!" wailed Ann as they emerged from the gloom of the loft into full daylight. "It was new to go to London," she continued sadly; "and Mother said it would do to wear on Sundays all through the year."
The red cashmere had indeed suffered sadly. It bore greasy traces of having been in contact with the pig-sty door all down its front, and was also torn in more than one place. Mrs. Winter was very much distressed by her grandchild's appearance when they returned to the house, and scolded her somewhat severely for having behaved in a rough and unmannerly fashion when out on a visit. Poor Ann burst into tears, and was only partially comforted when Miss Thompson took her upstairs and kindly stitched together the worst of the rents so that she might not look absolutely ragged on her way home.
When the little pony cart drove away from the door Madge returned rather thoughtfully to the schoolroom with the tortoise-shell cat in her arms.
"It seems a curious thing," she said, "that people are not always happy when you mean them to be. I thought Ann would like the same things as we do, and after all she has gone away almost crying, and hasn't enjoyed herself a bit."
"Another time," answered Miss Thompson, "when you really wish to give your guests pleasure, you had better consult their tastes instead of your own. If you had only considered for a moment, it was not probable that a town child would be as familiar with animals as you are; and it was also easy to see that Ann had been dressed in her best clothes for the afternoon and was afraid of hurting them."
"Perhaps so," said Madge. "But I always think it's rather stupid of people who don't like the same things as we do, don't you?"