The Terrible Twins

by Edgar Jepson

Author of
The Admirable Tinker, Pollyooly, etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HANSON BOOTH

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1913
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY


Contents

 CHAPTER I. AND CAPTAIN BASTER
 CHAPTER II. GUARDIAN ANGELS
 CHAPTER III. AND THE CATS' HOME
 CHAPTER IV. AND THE VISIT OF INSPECTION
 CHAPTER V. AND THE SACRED BIRD
 CHAPTER VI. AND THE LANDED PROPRIETOR
 CHAPTER VII. AND PRINGLE'S POND
 CHAPTER VIII. AND THE MUTTLE DEEPING PEACHES
 CHAPTER IX. AND THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM
 CHAPTER X. AND THE ENTERTAINMENT OF ROYALTY
 CHAPTER XI. AND THE UNREST CURE
 CHAPTER XII. AND THE MUTTLE DEEPING FISHING
 CHAPTER XIII. AND AN APOLOGY
 CHAPTER XIV. AND THE SOUND OF WEDDING BELLS

[Illustration: “Cats for the cats’ home!” said Sir Maurice Falconer.]

ILLUSTRATIONS

 “Cats for the cats’ home!” said Sir Maurice Falconer.
 “This is different,” she said.
 We are avenged.
 She was almost sorry when they came at last to the foot of the knoll.
 The Archduke bellowed, “Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!”
 Sir James turned and found himself looking into the deep brown eyes of a very pretty woman.




THE TERRIBLE TWINS




 CHAPTER I
AND CAPTAIN BASTER


For all that their voices rang high and hot, the Twins were really
discussing the question who had hit Stubb’s bull-terrier with the
greatest number of stones, in the most amicable spirit. It was indeed a
nice question and hard to decide since both of them could throw stones
quicker, straighter and harder than any one of their size and weight
for miles and miles round; and they had thrown some fifty at the
bull-terrier before they had convinced that dense, but irritated,
quadruped that his master’s interests did not really demand his
presence in the orchard; and of these some thirty had hit him. Violet
Anastasia Dangerfield, who always took the most favorable view of her
experience, claimed twenty hits out of a possible thirty; Hyacinth
Wolfram Dangerfield, in a very proper spirit, had at once claimed the
same number; and both of them were defending their claims with loud
vehemence, because if you were not loudly vehement, your claim lapsed.

Suddenly Hyacinth Wolfram, as usual, closed the discussion; he said
firmly, “I tell you what: we both hit that dog the same number of
times.”

So saying, he swung round the rude calico bag, bulging with booty,
which hung from his shoulders, and took from it two Ribston pippins.

“Perhaps we did,” said Anastasia amiably. They went swiftly down the
road, munching in a peaceful silence.

It had been an odd whim of nature to make the Twins so utterly unlike.
No stranger ever took Violet Anastasia Dangerfield, so dark-eyed,
dark-haired, dark-skinned, of so rich a coloring, so changeful and
piquant a face, for the cousin, much less for the twin-sister, of
Hyacinth Wolfram Dangerfield, so fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed,
on whose firmly chiseled features rested so perpetual, so contrasting a
serenity. But it was a whim of man, of their wicked uncle Sir Maurice
Falconer, that had robbed them of their pretty names. He had named
Violet “Erebus” because, he said,

She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry
spheres:


and he had forthwith named Hyacinth the “Terror” because, he said, the
ill-fated Sir John Franklin had made the Terror the eternal companion
of Erebus.

Erebus and the Terror they became. Even their mother never called them
by their proper pretty names save in moments of the severest
displeasure.

“They’re good apples,” said the Terror presently, as he threw away the
core of his third and took two more from the bag.

“They are,” said Erebus in a grateful tone—“worth all the trouble we
had with that dog.”

“We’d have cleared him out of the orchard in half the time, if we’d had
our catapults and bullets. It was hard luck being made to promise never
to use catapults again,” said the Terror sadly.

“All that fuss about a little lead from the silly old belfry gutter!”
said Erebus bitterly. could easily have put slates in the place of the
sheet of lead we took,” said the Terror with equal bitterness.

“Why can’t they leave us alone? It quite spoils the country not to have
catapults,” said Erebus, gazing with mournful eyes on the rich autumn
scene through which they moved.

The Twins had several grievances against their elders; but the loss of
their catapults was the bitterest. They had used those weapons to
enrich the simple diet which was all their mother’s slender means
allowed them; on fortunate days they had enriched it in defiance of the
game laws. Keepers and farmers had made no secret of their suspicions
that this was the case: but the careful Twins never afforded them the
pleasure of adducing evidence in support of those suspicions. Then a
heavy thunderstorm revealed the fact that they had removed a sheet of
lead, which they had regarded as otiose, from the belfry gutter, to
cast it into bullets for their catapults; a consensus of the public
opinion of Little Deeping had demanded that they should be deprived of
them; and their mother, yielding to the

“As if belfries wanted lead gutters. They could easily have put slates
in the place of the sheet of lead we took,” said the Terror with equal
bitterness.

“Why can’t they leave us alone? It quite spoils the country not to have
catapults,” said Erebus, gazing with mournful eyes on the rich autumn
scene through which they moved.

The Twins had several grievances against their elders; but the loss of
their catapults was the bitterest. They had used those weapons to
enrich the simple diet which was all their mother’s slender means
allowed them; on fortunate days they had enriched it in defiance of the
game laws. Keepers and farmers had made no secret of their suspicions
that this was the case: but the careful Twins never afforded them the
pleasure of adducing evidence in support of those suspicions. Then a
heavy thunderstorm revealed the fact that they had removed a sheet of
lead, which they had regarded as otiose, from the belfry gutter, to
cast it into bullets for their catapults; a consensus of the public
opinion of Little Deeping had demanded that they should be deprived of
them; and their mother, yielding to the demand, had forbidden them to
use them any longer.

The Twins always obeyed their mother; but they resented bitterly the
action of Little Deeping. It was, indeed, an ungrateful place, since
their exploits afforded its old ladies much of the carping conversation
they loved. In a bitter and vindictive spirit the Twins set themselves
to become the finest stone-throwers who ever graced a countryside; and
since they had every natural aptitude in the way of muscle and keenness
of eye, they were well on their way to realize their ambition. There
may, indeed, have been northern boys of thirteen who could outthrow the
Terror, but not a girl in England could throw a stone straighter or
harder than Erebus.

They came to a gate opening on to Little Deeping common; Erebus vaulted
it gracefully; the Terror, hampered by the bag of booty, climbed over
it (for the Twins it was always simpler to vault or climb over a gate
than to unlatch it and walk through) and took their way along a narrow
path through the gorse and bracken. They had gone some fifty yards,
when from among the bracken on their right a voice cried: “Bang-g-g!
Bang-g-g!”

The Twins fell to the earth and lay still; and Wiggins came out of the
gorse, his wooden rifle on his shoulder, a smile of proud triumph on
his richly freckled face. He stood over the fallen Twins; and his smile
of triumph changed to a scowl of fiendish ferocity.

“Ha! Ha! Shot through the heads!” he cried. “Their bones will bleach in
the pathless forest while their scalps hang in the wigwam of Red Bear
the terror of the Cherokees!”

Then he scalped the Twins with a formidable but wooden knife. Then he
took from his knickerbockers pocket a tattered and dirty note-book, an
inconceivable note-book (it was the only thing to curb the exuberant
imagination of Erebus) made an entry in it, and said in a tone of
lively satisfaction: “You’re only one game ahead.”

“I thought we were three,” said Erebus, rising.

“They’re down in the book,” said Wiggins; firmly; and his bright blue
eyes were very stern.

“Well, we shall have to spend a whole afternoon getting well ahead of
you again,” said Erebus, shaking out her dark curls.

Wiggins waged a deadly war with the Twins. He ambushed and scalped
them; they ambushed and scalped him. Seeing that they had already
passed their thirteenth birthday, it was a great condescension on their
part to play with a boy of ten; and they felt it. But Wiggins was a
favored friend; and the game filled intervals between sterner deeds.

The Terror handed Wiggins an apple; and the three of them moved swiftly
on across the common. Wiggins was one of those who spurn the earth. Now
and again, for obscure but profound reasons, he would suddenly spring
into the air and proceed by leaps and bounds.

Once when he slowed down to let them overtake him, he said, “The game
isn’t really fair; you’re two to one.”

“You keep very level,” said the Terror politely.

“Yes; it’s my superior astuteness,” said Wiggins sedately.

“Goodness! What words you use!” said Erebus in a somewhat jealous tone.

“It’s being so much with my father; you see, he has a European
reputation,” Wiggins explained.

“Yes, everybody says that. But what is a European reputation?” said
Erebus in a captious tone.

“Everybody in Europe knows him,” said Wiggins; and he spurned the
earth.

They called him Wiggins because his name was Rupert. It seemed to them
a name both affected and ostentatious. Besides, crop it as you might,
his hair _would_ assume the appearance of a mop.

They came out of the narrow path into a broader rutted cart-track to
see two figures coming toward them, eighty yards away.

“It’s Mum,” said Erebus.

Quick as thought the Terror dropped behind her, slipped off the bag of
booty, and thrust it into a gorse-bush.

“And—and—it’s the Cruncher with her!” cried Erebus in a tone in which
disgust outrang surprise.

“Of all the sickening things! The Cruncher!” cried the Terror, echoing
her disgust. “What’s he come down again for?”

They paused; then went on their way with gloomy faces to meet the
approaching pair.

The gentleman whom they called the “Cruncher,” and who from their tones
of disgust had so plainly failed to win their young hearts was Captain
Baster of the Twenty-fourth Hussars; and they called him the Cruncher
on account of the vigor with which he plied his large, white, prominent
teeth.

They had not gone five yards when Wiggins said in a tone of
superiority: “_I_ know why he’s come down.”

“Why?” said the Terror quickly.

“He’s come down to marry your mother,” said Wiggins.

“What?” cried the Twins with one voice, one look of blank
consternation; and they stopped short.

“How dare you say a silly thing like that?” cried Erebus fiercely.

“_I_ didn’t say it,” protested Wiggins. “Mrs. Blenkinsop said it.”

“That silly old gossip!” cried Erebus.

“And Mrs. Morton said it, too,” said Wiggins. “They came to tea
yesterday and talked about it. I was there: there was a plum cake—one
of those rich ones from Springer’s at Rowington. And they said it would
be such a good thing for both of you because he’s so awfully rich: the
Terror would go to Eton; and you’d go to a good school and get a proper
bringing-up and grow up a lady, after all—”

“I wouldn’t go! I should hate it!” cried Erebus.

“Yes; they said you wouldn’t like wholesome discipline,” said the
faithful reporter. “And they didn’t seem to think your mother would
like it either—marrying the Cruncher.”

“Like it? She wouldn’t dream of it—a bounder like that!” said the
Terror.

“I don’t know—I don’t know—if she thought it would be good for us—she’d
do anything for us—you know she would!” cried Erebus, wringing her
hands in anxious fear.

The Terror thrust his hands into his pockets; his square chin stuck out
in dogged resolution; a deep frown furrowed his brow; and his face was
flushed.

“This must be stopped,” he said through his set teeth.

“But how?” said Erebus.

“We’ll find a way. It’s war!” said the Terror darkly.

Wiggins spurned the earth joyfully: “I’m on your side,” he said. “I’m a
trusty ally. He called me Freckles.”

“Come on,” said the Terror. “We’d better face him.”

They walked firmly to meet the detested enemy. As they drew near, the
Terror’s face recovered its flawless serenity; but Erebus was scowling
still.

From twenty yards away Captain Baster greeted them in a rich hearty
voice: “How’s Terebus and the Error; and how’s Freckles?” he cried, and
laughed heartily at his own delightful humor.

The Twins greeted him with a cold, almost murderous politeness; Wiggins
shook hands with Mrs. Dangerfield very warmly and left out Captain
Baster.

“I’m always pleased to see you with the Twins, Wiggins,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield with her delightful smile. “I know you keep them out of
mischief.”

“It’s generally all over before I come,” said Wiggins somewhat glumly;
and of a sudden it occurred to him to spurn the earth.

“I’ve not had that kiss yet, Terebus. I’m going to have it this time
I’m here,” said Captain Baster playfully; and he laughed his rich
laugh.

“Are you?” said Erebus through her clenched teeth; and she gazed at him
with the eyes of hate.

They turned; and Mrs. Dangerfield said, “You’ll come to tea with us,
Wiggins?”

“Thank you very much,” said Wiggins; and he spurned the earth. As he
alighted on it once more, he added. “Tea at other people’s houses is so
much nicer than at home. Don’t you think so, Terror?”

“I always eat more—somehow,” said the Terror with a grave smile.

They walked slowly across the common, a protecting twin on either side
of Mrs. Dangerfield; and Captain Baster, in the strong facetious vein,
enlivened the walk with his delightful humor. The gallant officer was
the very climax of the florid, a stout, high-colored, black-eyed,
glossy-haired young man of twenty-eight, with a large tip-tilted nose,
neatly rounded off in a little knob forever shiny. The son of the
famous pickle millionaire, he had enjoyed every advantage which great
wealth can bestow, and was now enjoying heartily a brave career in a
crack regiment. The crack regiment, cold, phlegmatic, unappreciative,
was not enjoying it. To his brother officers he was known as
Pallybaster, a name he had won for himself by his frequent remark, “I’m
a very pally man.” It was very true: it was difficult, indeed, for any
one whom he thought might be useful to him, to avoid his friendship,
for, in addition to all the advantages which great wealth bestows, he
enjoyed an uncommonly thick skin, an armor-plate impenetrable to snubs.

All the way to Colet House, he maintained a gay facetious flow of
personal talk that made Erebus grind her teeth, now and again suffused
the face of Wiggins with a flush of mortification that dimmed his
freckles, and wrinkled Mrs. Dangerfield’s white brow in a distressful
frown. The Terror, serene, impassive, showed no sign of hearing him;
his mind was hard at work on this very serious problem with which he
had been so suddenly confronted. More than once Erebus countered a
witticism with a sharp retort, but with none sharp enough to pierce the
rhinocerine hide of the gallant officer. Once this unbidden but
humorous guest was under their roof, the laws of hospitality denied her
even this relief. She could only treat him with a steely civility. The
steeliness did not check the easy flow of his wit.

He looked oddly out of his place in the drawing-room of Colet House; he
was too new for it. The old, worn, faded, carefully polished furniture,
for the most part of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century,
seemed abashed in the presence of his floridness. It seemed to demand
the setting of spacious, ornately glittering hotels. Mrs. Dangerfield
liked him less in her own drawing-room than anywhere. When her eyes
rested on him in it, she was troubled by a curious feeling that only by
some marvelous intervention of providence had he escaped calling in a
bright plaid satin tie.

The fact that he was not in his proper frame, though he was not
unconscious of it, did not trouble Captain Baster. Indeed, he took some
credit to himself for being so little contemptuous of the shabby
furniture. In a high good humor he went on shining and shining all
through tea; and though at the end of it his luster was for a while
dimmed by the discovery that he had left his cigarette-case at the inn
and there were no cigarettes in the house, he was presently shining
again. Then the Twins and Wiggins rose and retired firmly into the
garden.

They came out into the calm autumn evening with their souls seething.

“He’s a pig—and a beast! We can’t let Mum marry him! We _must_ stop
it!” cried Erebus.

“It’s all very well to say ‘must.’ But you know what Mum is: if she
thinks a thing is for our good, do it she will,” said the Terror
gloomily.

“And she never consults us—never!” cried Erebus.

“Only when she’s a bit doubtful,” said the Terror.

“Then she’s not doubtful now. She hasn’t said a word to us about it,”
said Erebus.

“That’s what looks so bad. It looks as if she’d made up her mind
already; and if she has, it’s no use talking to her,” said the Terror
yet more gloomily.

They were silent; and the bright eyes of Wiggins moved expectantly
backward and forward from one to the other. He preserved a decorous
sympathetic silence.

“No, it’s no good talking to Mum,” said Erebus presently in a
despairing tone.

“Well, we must leave her out of it and just squash the Cruncher
ourselves,” said the Terror.

“But you can’t squash the Cruncher!” cried Erebus.

“Why not? We’ve squashed other people, haven’t we?” said the Terror
sharply.

“Never any one so thick-skinned as him,” said Erebus.

The Terror frowned deeply again: “We can always try,” he said coldly.
“And look here: I’ve been thinking all tea-time: if stepchildren don’t
like stepfathers, there’s no reason why stepfathers should like
stepchildren.”

“The Cruncher likes us, though it’s no fault of ours,” said Erebus.

“That’s just it; he doesn’t really know us. If he saw the kind of
stepchildren he was in for, it might choke him off,” said the Terror.

“But he can’t even see we hate him,” objected Erebus.

“No, and if he did, he wouldn’t mind, he’d think it a joke. My idea
isn’t to show him how we feel, but to show him what we can do, if we
give our minds to it,” said the Terror in a somewhat sinister tone.

Erebus gazed at him, taking in his meaning. Then a dazzling smile
illumined her charming face; and she cried: “Oh, yes! Let’s give him
socks! Let’s begin at once!”

“Yes: I’ll help! I’m a trusty ally!” cried Wiggins; and he spurned the
earth joyfully at the thought.

They were silent a while, their faces grave and intent, cudgeling their
brains for some signal exploit with which to open hostilities.

Presently Wiggins said: “You might make him an apple-pie bed. They’re
very annoying when you’re sleepy.”

He spoke with an air of experience.

“What’s an apple-pie bed?” said Erebus scornfully.

Wiggins hung his head, abashed.

“It’s a beginning, anyhow,” said the Terror in an approving tone; and
he added with the air of a philosopher: “Little things, and big things,
they all count.”

“I was trying to think how to break his leg; but I can’t,” said Erebus
bitterly.

“By Jove! That cigarette-case! Come on!” cried the Terror; and he led
the way swiftly out of the garden and took the path to Little Deeping.

“Where are we going?” said Erebus.

“We’re going to make him that apple-pie bed. There’s nothing like
making a beginning. We shall think of heaps of other things. If we
don’t worry about them, they’ll occur to us. They always do,” said the
Terror, at once practical and philosophical.

They walked briskly down to The Plough, the one inn of Little Deeping,
where, as usual, Captain Baster was staying, and went in through the
front door which stood open. At the sound of their footsteps in her
hall the stout but good-humored landlady came bustling out of the bar
to learn what they wanted.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pittaway,” said the Terror politely. “We’ve come
for Captain Baster’s cigarette-case. He’s left it somewhere in his
room.”

At the thought of handling the shining cigarette-case Mrs. Pittaway
rubbed her hands on her apron; then the look of favor with which her
eyes had rested on the fair guileless face of the Terror, changed to a
frown; and she said: “Bother the thing! It’s sure to be stuck somewhere
out of sight. And the bar full, too.”

“Don’t you trouble; I’ll get it. I know the bedroom,” said the Terror
with ready amiability; and he started to mount the stairs.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Pittaway, bustling back to the bar.

Erebus and Wiggins dashed lightly up the stairs after the Terror. In
less than two minutes the deft hands of the Twins had dealt with the
bed; and their intelligent eyes were eagerly scanning the hapless
unprotected bedroom. Erebus sprang to the shaving-brush on the
mantelpiece and thrust it under the mattress. The Terror locked Captain
Baster’s portmanteau; and as he placed the keys beside the
shaving-brush, he said coldly:

“That’ll teach him not to be so careless.”

Erebus giggled; then she took the water-jug and filled one of Captain
Baster’s inviting dress-boots with water. Wiggins rocked with laughter.

“Don’t stand giggling there! Why don’t you do something?” said Erebus
sharply.

Wiggins looked thoughtful; then he said: “A clothes-brush in bed is
very annoying when you stick your foot against it.”

He stepped toward the dressing-table; but the Terror was before him. He
took the clothes-brush and set it firmly, bristles outward, against the
bottom of the folded sheet of the apple-pie bed, where one or the other
of Captain Baster’s feet was sure to find it. The Terror did not care
which foot was successful.

Then inspiration failed them; the Terror took the cigarette-case from
the dressing-table; they came quietly down the stairs and out of the
inn.

As they turned up the street the Terror said with modest if somewhat
vengeful triumph: “There! you see things _do_ occur to us.” Then with
his usual scrupulous fairness he added: “But it was Wiggins who set us
going.”

“I’m an ally; and he called me Freckles,” said Wiggins vengefully; and
once more he spurned the earth.

On their way home, half-way up the lane, where the trees arched most
thickly overhead, they came to a patch of deepish mud which was too
sheltered to have dried after the heavy rain of the day before.

“Mind the mud, Wiggins,” said Erebus, mindful of his carelessness in
the matter.

Wiggins walked gingerly along the side of it and said: “It wouldn’t be
a nice place to fall down in, would it?”

The Terror went on a few paces, stopped short, laughed a hard, sinister
little laugh, and said: “Wiggins, you’re a treasure!”

“What is it? What is it now?” said Erebus quickly.

“A little job of my own. It wouldn’t do for you and Wiggins to have a
hand in it, he’ll swear so,” said the Terror.

“Who’ll swear?” said Erebus.

“The Cruncher. And you’re a girl and Wiggins is too young to hear such
language,” said the Terror.

“Rubbish!” said Erebus sharply. “Tell us what it is.”

The Terror shook his head.

“It’s a beastly shame! I ought to help—I always do,” cried Erebus in a
bitterly aggrieved tone.

The Terror shook his head.

“All right,” said Erebus. “Who wants to help in a stupid thing like
that? But all the same you’ll go and make a silly mull of it without
me—you always do.”

“You jolly well wait and see,” said the Terror with calm confidence.

Erebus was still muttering darkly about piggishness when they reached
the house.

They went into the drawing-room in a body and found Captain Baster
still talking to their mother, in the middle, indeed, of a long story
illustrating his prowess in a game of polo, on two three-hundred-guinea
and one three-hundred-and-fifty-guinea ponies. He laid great stress on
the prices he had paid for them.

When it came to an end, the Terror gave him his cigarette-case.

Mrs. Dangerfield observed this example of the thoughtfulness of her
offspring with an air of doubtful surprise.

Captain Baster took the cigarette-case and said with hearty jocularity:
“Thank you, Error—thank you. But why didn’t you bring it to me,
Terebus? Then you’d have earned that kiss I’m going to give you.”

Erebus gazed at him with murderous eyes, and said in a sinister tone:
“Oh, I helped to get it.”




 CHAPTER II
GUARDIAN ANGELS


At seven o’clock Captain Baster took his leave to dine at his inn. Of
his own accord he promised faithfully to return at nine sharp. He left
the house a proud and happy man, for he knew that he had been shining
before Mrs. Dangerfield with uncommon brilliance.

He was not by any means blind to her charm and beauty, for though she
was four years older than he, she contrived never to look less than two
years younger, and that without any aid from the cosmetic arts. But he
chiefly saw in her an admirable ladder to those social heights to which
his ardent soul aspired to climb. She had but to return to the polite
world from which the loss of her husband and her straightened
circumstances had removed her, to find herself a popular woman with a
host of friends in the exalted circles Captain Baster burned to adorn.
Yet it must not for a moment be supposed that he was proposing a
mercenary marriage for her; he was sure that she loved him, for he felt
rather than knew that with women he was irresistible.

It was not love, however, that knitted Mrs. Dangerfield’s brow in a
troubled frown as she dressed; nor was it love that caused her to
select to wear that evening one of her oldest and dowdiest gowns, a
gown with which she had never been truly pleased. The troubled air did
not leave her face during dinner; and it seemed to affect the Twins,
for they, too, were gloomy. They were pleased, indeed, with the
beginning of the campaign, but still very doubtful of success in the
end. Where their interests were concerned their mother was of a
firmness indeed hard to move.

Moreover, she kept looking at them in an odd considering fashion that
disturbed them, especially at the Terror. Erebus in a pretty light
frock of her mother’s days of prosperity, which had been cut down and
fitted to her, was a sight to brighten any one’s eyes; but the sleeves
of the dark coat which the Terror wore on Sundays and on gala evenings,
bared a length of wrist distressing to a mother’s eye.

The fine high spirits of Captain Baster were somewhat dashed by his
failure to find his keys and open his portmanteau, since he would be
unable to ravish Mrs. Dangerfield’s eye that evening by his
distinguished appearance in the unstained evening dress of an English
gentleman. After a long hunt for the mislaid keys, in which the harried
staff of The Plough took part, he made up his mind that he must appear
before her, with all apologies, in the tweed suit he was wearing. It
was a bitter thought, for in a tweed suit he could not really feel a
conquering hero after eight o’clock at night.

Then he put his foot into a dress-boot full of cold water. It was a
good water-tight boot; and it had faithfully retained all of the water
its lining had not soaked up. The gallant officer said a good deal
about its retentive properties to the mute boot.

At dinner be learned from Mrs. Pittaway that the obliging Terror had
himself fetched the cigarette-case from his bedroom. A flash of
intuition connected the Terror with the watered boot; and he begged
her, with loud acerbity, never again to let any one—any one!!—enter his
bedroom. Mrs. Pittaway objected that slops could not be emptied, or
beds made without human intervention. He begged her, not perhaps
unreasonably, not to talk like a fool; and she liked him none the
better for his directness.

Food always soothed him; and he rose from his dinner in better spirits.
As he rose from it, the Terror, standing among the overarching trees
which made the muddy patch in the lane so dark, was drawing a
clothes-line tight. It ran through the hedge that hid him to the hedge
on the other side of the lane. There it was fastened to a stout stake;
and he was fastening it to the lowest rail of a post and rails. At its
tightest it rose a foot above the roadway just at the beginning of the
mud-patch. It was at its tightest.

Heartened by his dinner and two extra whiskies and sodas, Captain
Baster set out for Colet House at a brisk pace. As he moved through the
bracing autumn air, his spirits rose yet higher; that night—that very
night he would crown Mrs. Dangerfield’s devotion with his avowal of an
answering passion. He pressed forward swiftly like a conqueror; and
like a conqueror he whistled. Then he found the clothes-line, suddenly,
pitched forward and fell, not heavily, for the mud was thick, but
sprawling. He rose, oozy and dripping, took a long breath, and the
welkin shuddered as it rang.

The Terror did not shudder; he was going home like the wind.

Having sent Erebus to bed at a few minutes to nine Mrs. Dangerfield
waited restlessly for her tardy guest, her charming face still set in a
troubled frown. Her woman’s instinct assured her that Captain Baster
would propose that night; and she dreaded it. Two or three times she
rose and walked up and down the room; and when she saw her deep, dark,
troubled eyes in the two old, almost giltless round mirrors, they did
not please her as they usually did. Those eyes were one of the sources
from which had sprung Captain Baster’s attraction to her.

But there were the Twins; she longed to do so many useful, needful
things for them; and marriage with Captain Baster was the way of doing
them. She told herself that he would make an excellent stepfather and
husband; that under his unfortunate manner were a good heart and
sterling qualities. She assured herself that she had the power to draw
them out; once he was her husband, she would change him. But still she
was ill at ease. Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she was doubtful of
her power to make a silk purse out of rhinoceros hide.

When at last a note came from The Plough to say that he was
unfortunately prevented from coming that evening, but would come next
morning to take her for a walk, she was filled with so extravagant a
relief that it frightened her. She sat down and wrote out a telegram to
her brother, rang for old Sarah, their trusty hard-working maid, and
bade her tell the Terror, who had slipped quietly upstairs to bed at
one minute to nine, to send it off in the morning. She did not wish to
take the chance of not waking and despatching it as early as possible.
She must have advice; and Sir Maurice Falconer was not only a shrewd
man of the world, but he would also advise her with the keenest regard
for her interests. She tried not to hope that he would find marriage
with Captain Baster incompatible with them.

Captain Baster awoke in less than his usual cheerfulness. He thought
for a while of the Terror and boots and mud with a gloomy unamiability.
Then he rose and betook himself to his toilet. In the middle of it he
missed his shaving-brush. He hunted for it furiously; he could have
sworn that he had taken it out of his portmanteau. He did swear, but
not to any definite fact. There was nothing for it: he must expose his
tender chin to the cruel razor of a village barber.

Then he disliked the look of his tweed suit; all traces of mud had not
vanished from it. In one short night it had lost its pristine
freshness. This and the ordeal before his chin made his breakfast
gloomy; and soon after it he entered the barber’s shop with the air of
one who has abandoned hope. Later he came out of it with his roving
black eye full of tears of genuine feeling; his scraped chin was
smarting cruelly and unattractive in patches—red patches. At the door
the breathless, excited and triumphant maid of the inn accosted him
with the news that she had just found his keys and his shaving-brush
under the mattress of his bed. He looked round the village of Little
Deeping blankly; it suddenly seemed to him a squalid place.

None the less it was a comforting thought that he would not be put to
the expense of having his portmanteau broken open and fitted with a new
lock, for his great wealth had never weakened the essential thriftiness
of his soul. Half an hour later, in changed tweeds but with unchanged
chin, he took his way to Colet House, thinking with great unkindness of
his future stepson. As he drew near it he saw that that stepson was
awaiting him at the garden gate; nearer still he saw that he was
awaiting him with an air of ineffable serenity.

The Terror politely opened the gate for him, and with a kind smile
asked him if he had slept well.

The red blood of the Basters boiled in the captain’s veins, and he said
somewhat thickly: “Look here, my lad, I don’t want any more of your
tricks! You play another on me, and I’ll give you the soundest licking
you ever had in your life!”

The serenity on the Terror’s face broke up into an expression of the
deepest pain: “Whatever’s the matter?” he said in a tone of amazement.
“I thought you loved a joke. You said you did—yesterday—at tea.”

“You try it on again!” said Captain Baster.

“Now, whatever has put your back up?” said the Terror in a tone of even
greater amazement. “Was it the apple-pie bed, or the lost keys, or the
water in the boot, or the clothes-line across the road?”

It was well that the Terror could spring with a cat’s swiftness:
Captain Baster’s boot missed him by a hair’s breadth.

The Terror ran round the house, in at the back door and up to the
bedroom of Erebus.

“Waxy?” he cried joyously. “He’s black in the face! I told him he said
he loved a joke.”

Erebus only growled deep down in her throat. She was bitterly aggrieved
that she had not had a hand in Captain Baster’s downfall the night
before. The Terror had awakened her to tell her joyfully of his
glorious exploit and of the shuddering welkin.

He paid no heed to the rumbling of her discontent; he said: “Now, you
quite understand. You’ll stick to them like a leech. You won’t give him
any chance of talking to Mum alone. It’s most important.”

“I understand. But what’s that? Anybody could do it,” she said in a
tone of extreme bitterness. “It’s you that’s getting all the real fun.”

“But you’ll be able to make yourself beastly disagreeable, if you’re
careful,” said the Terror.

“Of course, I shall. But what’s that? I tell you what it is: I’m going
to have my proper share of the real fun. The first chance I get, I’m
going to stone him—so there!” said Erebus fiercely.

“All right. But it doesn’t seem quite the thing for a girl to do,” said
the Terror in a judicial tone.

“Rats!” said Erebus.

It was well that Mrs. Dangerfield kept Captain Baster waiting; it gave
the purple tinge, which was heightening his floridness somewhat
painfully, time to fade. When she did come to him, he was further
annoyed by the fact that Erebus came too, and with a truculent air
announced her intention of accompanying them. Mrs. Dangerfield was
surprised; Erebus seldom showed any taste for such a gentle occupation.
Also she was relieved; she did not want Captain Baster to propose
before she had taken counsel with her brother.

Captain Baster started in a gloomy frame of mind; he did not try to
hide from himself the fact that Mrs. Dangerfield had lost some of her
charm: she was the mother of the Terror. He found, too, that his
instinctive distaste for the company of Erebus was not ungrounded. She
was a nuisance; she would talk about wet boots; the subject seemed to
fascinate her. Then, when at last he recovered his spirits, grew once
more humorous, and even rose to the proposing point, there was no
getting rid of her. She was impervious to hints; she refused, somewhat
pertly, to pause and gather the luscious blackberries. How could a man
be his humorous self in these circumstances? He felt that his humor was
growing strained, losing its delightful lightness.

Then the accident: it was entirely Erebus’ own fault (he could swear
it) that he tripped over her foot and pitched among those infernal
brambles. Her howls of anguish were all humbug: he had not hurt her
ankle (he could swear it); there was not a tear. The moment he offered,
furiously, to carry her, she walked without a vestige of a limp.

Mrs. Dangerfield had no right to look vexed with him; if one brought up
one’s children like that—well. Certainly she was losing her charm; she
was the mother of Erebus also.

His doubt, whether the mother of such children was the right kind of
wife for him, had grown very serious indeed, when, as they drew near
Colet House, a slim, tall young man of an extreme elegance and
distinction came through the garden gate to meet them.

With a cry of “Uncle Maurice!” the crippled Erebus dashed to meet him
with the light bounds of an antelope. Captain Baster could hardly
believe his eyes; he knew the young man by sight, by name and by
repute. It was Sir Maurice Falconer, a man he longed to boast his
friend. With his aid a man might climb to the highest social peaks.

When Mrs. Dangerfield introduced him as her brother (he had never
dreamed it) he could not believe his good fortune. But why had he not
learned this splendid fact before? Why had he been kept in the dark? He
did not reflect that he had been so continuously busy making
confidences about himself, his possessions and his exploits to her that
he had given her the smallest opportunities of telling him anything
about herself.

But he was not one to lose a golden opportunity; he set about making up
for lost time with a will; and never had he so thoroughly demonstrated
his right to the name of Pallybaster. His friendliness was
overwhelming. Before the end of lunch he had invited Sir Maurice to
dine with him at his mess, to dine with him at two of his clubs, to
shoot with him, to ride a horse of his in the forthcoming regimental
steeplechases, to go with him on a yachting cruise in the
Mediterranean.

All through the afternoon his friendliness grew and grew. He could not
bear that any one else should have a word with Sir Maurice. The Twins
were intolerable with their interruptions, their claims on their
uncle’s attention. They disgusted Captain Baster: when he became their
stepfather, it would be his first task to see that they learned a
respectful silence in the presence of their elders.

He never gave a thought to his proposal; he sought no occasion to make
it. Captain Baster’s love was of his life a thing apart, but his social
aspirations were the chief fact of his existence. Besides, there was no
haste; he knew that Mrs. Dangerfield was awaiting his avowal with a
passionate eagerness; any time would do for that. But he must seize the
fleeting hour and bind Sir Maurice to himself by the bond of the
warmest friendship.

Again and again he wondered how Sir Maurice could give his attention to
the interrupting exacting Twins, when he had a man of the world,
humorous, knowing, wealthy, to talk to. He tried to make opportunities
for him to escape from them; Sir Maurice missed those opportunities; he
did not seem to see them. In truth Captain Baster was a little
disappointed in Sir Maurice: he did not find him frankly responsive:
polite—yes; indeed, politeness could go no further. But he lacked
warmth. After all he had not pinned him down to the definite acceptance
of a single invitation.

When, at seven o’clock, he tore himself away with the hearty assurance
that he would be back at nine sharp, he was not sure that he had made a
bosom friend. He felt that the friendship might need clenching.

As the front door shut behind him, Sir Maurice wiped his brow with the
air of one who has paused from exhausting toil: “I feel
sticky—positively sticky,” he said. “Oh, Erebus, you do have gummy
friends! I thought we should never get rid of him. I thought he’d stuck
himself to us for the rest of our natural lives.”

Mrs. Dangerfield smiled; and the Terror said in a tone of deep meaning:
“That’s what he’s up to.”

“He’s not a friend of mine!” cried Erebus hotly.

“We call him the Cruncher—because of his teeth,” said the Terror.

“Then beware, Erebus—beware! You are young and possibly savory,” said
Sir Maurice.

“You children had better go and get ready for dinner,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield.

The Twins went to the door. On the threshold Erebus turned and said:
“It’s Mum he wants to crunch up—not me.”

The bolt shot, she fled through the door.

Sir Maurice looked at his sister and said softly:

“Oho! I see—heroism. That was what you wanted to consult me about.”
Then he laid his hand on her shoulder affectionately and added: “It
won’t do, Anne—it won’t do at all. I am convinced of it.”

“Do you think so?” said Mrs. Dangerfield in a tone in which
disappointment and relief were very nicely blended.

“Think? I’m sure of it,” said Sir Maurice in a tone of complete
conviction.

“But the children; he could do so much for the children,” pleaded Mrs.
Dangerfield.

“He could, but he wouldn’t. That kind of bounder never does any one any
good but himself. No, no; the children are right in calling him the
Cruncher. He would just crunch you up; and it is a thousand times
better for them to have an uncrunched mother than all the money that
ever came out of pickles.”

“Well, you know best. You do understand these things,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield; and she sighed.

“I do understand Basters,” said Sir Maurice in a confident tone.

Mrs. Dangerfield ran up-stairs to dress, on the light feet of a girl; a
weight oppressive, indeed, had been lifted from her spirit.

Dinner was a very bright and lively meal, though now and again a grave
thoughtfulness clouded the spirits of Erebus. Once Sir Maurice asked
her the cause of it. She only shook her head.

Captain Baster ate his dinner in a sizzling excitement: he knew that he
had made a splendid first impression; he was burning to deepen it. But
on his eager way back to Colet House, he walked warily, feeling before
him with his stick for clotheslines. He came out of the dark lane into
the broad turf road, which runs across the common to the house, with a
strong sense of relief and became once more his hearty care-free self.

There was not enough light to display the jaunty air with which he
walked in all its perfection; but there seemed to be light enough for
more serious matters, for a stone struck him on the thigh with
considerable force. He had barely finished the jump of pained surprise
with which he greeted it, when another stone whizzed viciously past his
head; then a third struck him on the shoulder.

With the appalling roar of a bull of Bashan the gallant officer dashed
in the direction whence, he judged, the stones came. He was just in
time to stop a singularly hard stone with his marble brow. Then he
found a gorse-bush (by tripping over a root) a gorse-bush which seemed
unwilling to release him from its stimulating, not to say prickly,
embrace. As he wallowed in it another stone found him, his ankle-bone.

He wrenched himself from the embrace of the gorse-bush, found his feet
and realized that there was only one thing to do. He tore along the
turf road to Colet House as hard as he could pelt. A stone struck the
garden gate as he opened it. He did not pause to ring; he opened the
front door, plunged heavily across the hall into the drawing-room. The
Terror formed the center of a domestic scene; he was playing draughts
with his Uncle Maurice.

Captain Baster glared at him with unbelieving eyes and gasped: “I—I
made sure it was that young whelp!”

This sudden violent entry of a bold but disheveled hussar produced a
natural confusion; Mrs. Dangerfield, Sir Maurice and the Terror sprang
to their feet, asking with one voice what had befallen him.

Captain Baster sank heavily on to a chair and instantly sprang up from
it with a howl as he chanced on several tokens of the gorse-bush’s
clinging affection.

“I’ve been stoned—stoned by some hulking scoundrels on the common!” he
cried; and he displayed the considerable bump rising on his marble
brow.

Mrs. Dangerfield was full of concern and sympathy; Sir Maurice was
cool, interested but cool; he did not blaze up into the passionate
indignation of a bosom friend.

“How many of them were there?” said the Terror.

“From the number of stones they threw I should think there were a
dozen,” said Captain Baster; and he panted still.

The Terror looked puzzled.

“I know—I know what it is!” cried Mrs. Dangerfield with an illuminating
flash of womanly intuition. “You’ve been humorous with some of the
villagers!”

“No, no! I haven’t joked with a single one of them!” cried Captain
Baster. “But I’ll teach the scoundrels a lesson! I’ll put the police on
them tomorrow morning. I’ll send for a detective from London. I’ll
prosecute them.”

Then Erebus entered, her piquant face all aglow: “I couldn’t find your
handkerchief anywhere, Mum. It took me ever such a time,” she said,
giving it to her.

The puzzled air faded from the Terror’s face; and he said in a tone of
deep meaning: “Have you been running to find it? You’re quite out of
breath.”

For a moment a horrid suspicion filled the mind of Captain Baster.… But
no: it was impossible—a child in whose veins flowed some of the bluest
blood in England. Besides, her slender arms could never have thrown the
stones as straight and hard as that.

On the other hand Sir Maurice appeared to have lost for once his superb
self-possession; he was staring at his beautiful niece with his mouth
slightly open. He muttered; something about finding his handkerchief,
and stumbled out of the room. They heard a door bang up-stairs; then,
through the ceiling, they heard a curious drumming sound. It occurred
to the Terror that it might be the heels of Sir Maurice on the floor.

Mrs. Dangerfield rang for old Sarah and instructed her to pull the
gorse prickles out of Captain Baster’s clothes. She had nearly finished
when Sir Maurice returned. He carried a handkerchief in his hand, and
he had recovered his superb self-possession; but he seemed somewhat
exhausted.

Captain Baster was somewhat excessive in the part of the wounded hero;
and for a while he continued to talk ferociously of the vengeance he
would wreak on the scoundrelly villagers. But after a while he forgot
his pricks and bruises to bask in the presence of Sir Maurice; and he
plied him with unflagging friendliness for the rest of the evening.

The Twins were allowed to sit up till ten o’clock since their Uncle
Maurice was staying with them; and since the Terror was full of
admiration and approval of Erebus’ strenuous endeavor to instil into
Captain Baster the perils and drawbacks of stepfatherhood, he brushed
out her abundant hair for her, an office he sometimes performed when
she was in high favor with him. As he did it she related gleefully the
stoning of their enemy.

When she had done, he said warmly: “It was ripping. But the nuisance
is: he doesn’t know it was you who did it, and so it’s rather wasted.”

“Don’t you worry: I’ll let him know sometime to-morrow,” said Erebus
firmly.

“Yes; but he’s awfully waxy: suppose he prosecutes you?” said the
Terror doubtfully.

Erebus considered the point; then she said: “I don’t think he’d do
that; he’d look so silly being stoned by a girl. Anyhow, I’ll chance
it.”

“All right,” said the Terror. “It’s worth chancing it to put him off
marrying mother. And of course Uncle Maurice is here. He’ll see nothing
serious happens.”

“Of course he will,” said Erebus.

It must have been that the unflagging friendliness of Captain Baster
had weighed on their uncle’s mind, for Erebus, coming softly on him
from behind as he leaned over the garden gate after breakfast, heard
him singing to himself, and paused to listen to his song.

It went:

“_Where did his colonel dig him up,
        So young, so fair, so sweet,
With his shining nose, and his square, square toes?
        Was it Wapping or Basinghall Street?_”


He was so pleased with the effort that he sang it over to himself,
softly, twice with an air of deep satisfaction; and twice the moving
but silent lips of Erebus repeated it.

He was silent; and she said: “Oh, uncle! It’s splendid!”

Sir Maurice started and turned sharply: “You tell any one, little
pitcher, and I’ll pull your long ears,” he said amiably.

Erebus made no rash promises; she gazed at him with inscrutable eyes;
then nodding toward a figure striding swiftly over the common, she
said: “Here he comes.”

Sir Maurice gained the threshold of the front door in two bounds,
paused and cried: “I’m going back to bed! Tell him I’m in bed!”

He vanished, slamming the door behind him.

Captain Baster asked for Sir Maurice cheerfully; and his face fell when
Erebus told him that he had gone back to bed. Mrs. Dangerfield,
informed of her brother’s shrinking, had to be very firm with his new
friend to induce him to go for a walk with her and Erebus. He showed an
inclination to linger about the house till his sun should rise.

Then he tried to shorten the walk; but in this matter too Mrs.
Dangerfield was firm. She did not bring him back till half past twelve,
only to learn that Sir Maurice was very busy writing letters in his
bedroom. Captain Baster hoped for an invitation to lunch (he hinted as
much) but he was disappointed. In the end he returned to The Plough,
chafing furiously; he felt that his morning had been barren.

He was soon back at Colet House, but too late; Sir Maurice had started
on a walk with the Terror. Captain Baster said cheerily that he would
overtake them, and set out briskly to do so. He walked hard enough to
compass that end; and it is probable that he would have had a much
better chance of succeeding, had not Erebus sent him eastward whereas
Sir Maurice and the Terror had gone westward.

Captain Baster returned to Colet House in time for tea; and his heart
swelled big within him to learn that Mrs. Dangerfield had invited some
friends to meet him and her brother. Here was his chance to shine, to
show Sir Maurice his social mettle.

He could have wished that the party had been larger. They were only a
dozen all told: Mr. Carruthers, the squire of Little Deeping, the vicar
and his wife, the higher mathematician, father of Wiggins, Mrs.
Blenkinsop and Mrs. Morton, and Wiggins himself, who had spent most of
the afternoon with Erebus. Captain Baster would have preferred thirty
or forty, but none the less he fell to work with a will.

Mrs. Dangerfield had taken advantage of the Indian summer afternoon to
have tea in the garden; and it gave him room to expand. He was soon the
life and soul of the gathering. He was humorous with the vicar about
the church, and with the squire about the dulling effect of the country
on the intelligence. He tried to be humorous with Mr. Carrington, the
higher mathematician, whom he took to have retired from some profession
or business. This was so signal a failure that he dropped humor and
became important, telling them of his flat in town and his
country-house, their size and their expensive furniture; he told them
about his motor-cars, his exploits at regimental cricket, at polo and
at golf.

He patronized every one with a splendid affability, every one except
Sir Maurice; and him he addressed, with a flattering air of perfect
equality, as “Maurice, old boy,” or “Maurice, old chap,” or plain
“Maurice.” He did shine; his agreeable exertions threw him into a warm
perspiration; his nose shone especially; and they all hated him.

The Twins were busy handing round tea-cups and cakes, but they were
aware that their mother’s tea-party was a failure. As a rule her little
parties were so pleasant with their atmosphere of friendliness; and her
guests went away pleased with themselves, her and one another. The
Terror was keenly alive to the effect of Captain Baster; and a faint
persistent frown troubled his serenity. Erebus was more dimly aware
that her enemy was spoiling the party. Only Sir Maurice and Mr.
Carrington really enjoyed the humorist; and Sir Maurice’s enjoyment was
mingled with vexation.

Every one had finished their tea; and they were listening to Captain
Baster in a dull aggravation and blank silence, when he came to the end
of his panegyric on his possessions and accomplishments, and remembered
his grievance. Forthwith he related at length the affair of the night
before: how he had been stoned by a dozen hulking scoundrels on the
common. When he came to the end of it, he looked round for sympathy.

His audience wore a strained rather than sympathetic air, all of them
except the higher mathematician who had turned away and was coughing
violently.

The vicar broke the silence; he said: “Er—er—yes; most extraordinary.
But I don’t think it could have been the villagers. They’re—er—very
peaceful people.”

“It must have been some rowdies from Rowington,” said the squire in the
loud tone of a man trying to persuade his hearers that he believed what
he said.

Erebus rose and walked to the gravel path; their eyes fixed in an
incredulous unwinking stare.

She picked up three pebbles from the path, choosing them with some
care. The first pebble hit the weathercock, which rose above the right
gable of the house, plumb in the middle; the second missed its tail by
a couple of inches; the third hit its tail, and the weathercock spun
round as if a vigorous gale were devoting itself to its tail only.

“That’s where I meant to hit it the first time,” said Erebus with a
little explanatory wave of her hand; and she returned to her seat.

The silence that fell was oppressive. Captain Baster gazed earnestly at
Erebus, his roving black eyes fixed in an incredulous unwinking stare.

“That shows you the danger of jumping to hasty conclusions,” said the
higher mathematician in his clear agreeable voice. “I made sure it was
the Terror.”

“So did I,” said the vicar.

“I’d have bet on it,” said the squire.

The silence fell again. Mechanically Captain Baster rubbed the blue
bump on his marble brow.

Erebus broke the silence; she said: “Has any one heard Wiggins’ new
song?”

The squire, hastily and thoughtlessly, cried: “No! Let’s hear it!”

“Come on, Wiggins!” cried the vicar heartily.

They felt that the situation was saved.

Sir Maurice did not share their relief; he knew what was coming, knew
it in the depths of his horror-stricken heart. He ground his teeth
softly and glared at the piquant and glowing face of his niece as if he
could have borne the earth’s suddenly opening and swallowing her up.

The blushing Wiggins held back a little, and kicked his left foot with
his right. Then pushed forward by the eager Terror, to whom Erebus had
chanted the song before lunch, he stepped forward and in his dear
shrill treble, sang, slightly out of tune:

“_Where did his colonel dig him up,
        So young, so fair, so sweet,
With his shining nose, and his square, square toes?
        Was it Wapping or Basinghall Street?_”


As he sang Wiggins looked artlessly at Captain Baster; as he finished
everybody was looking at Captain Baster’s boots; his feet required them
square-toed.

Captain Baster’s face was a rich rose-pink; he, glared round the frozen
circle now trying hard not to look at his boots; he saw the faces melt
into irrepressible smiles; he looked to Sir Maurice, the man he had
made his bosom friend, for an indignant outburst; Sir Maurice was
smiling, too.

Captain Baster snorted fiercely; then he swelled with splendid dignity,
and said loudly, but thickly, “I refuse! Yes, I refuse to mix in a
society where children are brought up as hooligans yes: as hooligans!”

He turned on his heel, strode to the gate, and turned and bellowed,
“Hooligans!”

He flung himself through the gate and strode violently across the
common.

“Oh, Wiggins! How could you?” cried Mrs. Dangerfield in a tone of
horror.

“It wasn’t Wiggins! It was me! I taught him. He didn’t understand,”
said Erebus loyally.

“I did understand—quite. But why did he call me Freckles?” said Wiggins
in a vengeful tone. “Nobody can help having freckles.”




 CHAPTER III
AND THE CATS’ HOME


They watched the retreating figure of Captain Baster till it was lost
to sight among the gorse, in silence. They were glad at his going, but
sorry at the manner of it, since Mrs. Dangerfield looked distressed and
vexed.

Then the vicar said: “There is a good deal to be said for the point of
view of Wiggins, Mrs. Dangerfield. After all, Captain Baster was the
original aggressor.”

“Nevertheless I must apologize for my son’s exploding such an
uncommonly violent bomb at a quiet garden party,” said the higher
mathematician. “I suspect he underrated its effect.”

His tone was apologetic, but there was no excess of contrition in it.

“What I think is that Captain Baster’s notion of humor is catching; and
that it affected Erebus and Wiggins,” said Sir Maurice amiably. “And if
we start apologizing, there will be no end to it. I should have to come
in myself as the maker of the bomb who carelessly left it lying about.”

“It was certainly a happy effort,” said the vicar, smiling. Then he
changed the subject firmly, saying: “We’re going to London next week;
perhaps you could recommend a play to us to go to, Sir Maurice.”

A faint ripple of grateful relaxation ran round the circle and
presently it was clear that in taking himself off Captain Baster had
lifted a wet blanket of quite uncommon thickness from the party. They
were talking easily and freely; and Mrs. Dangerfield and Sir Maurice
were seeing to it that every one, even Mrs. Blenkinsop and Mrs. Morton,
were getting their little chances of shining. The Twins and Wiggins
slipped away; and their elders talked the more at their ease for their
going. In the end the little gathering which Captain Baster had so
nearly crushed, broke up in the best of spirits, all the guests in a
state of amiable satisfaction with Mrs. Dangerfield, themselves and one
another.

After they had gone Sir Maurice and Mrs. Dangerfield discussed the
exploits of Erebus; and he did his best to abate her distress at the
two onslaughts his violent niece had made on a guest. The Terror was
also doing his best in the matter: with unbending firmness he prevented
Erebus, eager to enjoy her uncle’s society, from returning to the house
till it was time to dress for dinner. He wished to give his mother time
to get over the worst of her annoyance.

Thanks to their efforts Mrs. Dangerfield did not rebuke her violent
daughter with any great severity. But even so, Erebus did not receive
these milder rebukes in the proper meek spirit. Unlike the philosophic
Terror, who for the most part accepted his mother’s just rebukes, after
a doubtful exploit, with a disarming sorrowful air, Erebus must always
make out a case for herself; and she did so now.

Displaying an injured air, she took the ground that Captain Baster was
not really a guest on the previous evening, since he was making a
descent on the house uninvited, and therefore he did not come within
the sphere of the laws of hospitality.

“Besides he never behaved like a guest,” she went on in a bitterly
aggrieved tone. “He was always making himself objectionable to every
one—especially to me. And if he was always trying to score off me, I’d
a perfect right to score off him. And anyhow, I wasn’t going to let him
marry you without doing everything I could to stop it. He’d be a
perfectly beastly stepfather—you know he would.”

This was an aspect of the matter Mrs. Dangerfield had no desire to
discuss; and flushing a little, she contented herself with closing the
discussion by telling Erebus not to do it again. She knew that however
bitterly Erebus might protest against a just rebuke, she would take it
sufficiently to heart. She was sure that she would not stone another
guest.

With the departure of Captain Baster peace settled on Colet House; and
Sir Maurice enjoyed very much his three days’ stay. The Twins, though
they were in that condition of subdued vivacity into which they always
fell after a signal exploit that came to their mother’s notice, were
very pleasant companions; and the peaceful life and early hours of
Little Deeping were grateful after the London whirl. Also he had many
talks with his sister on the matter of settling down in life, a course
of action she frequently urged on him.

When he went the Twins felt a certain dulness. It was not acute
boredom; they were preserved from that by the fact that the Terror went
every morning to study the classics with the vicar, and Erebus learned
English and French with her mother. Their afternoon leisure, therefore,
rarely palled on them.

One afternoon, as they came out of the house after lunch, Erebus
suggested that they should begin by ambushing Wiggins. They went,
therefore, toward Mr. Carrington’s house which stood nearly a mile away
on the outskirts of Little Deeping, and watched it from the edge of the
common. They saw their prey in the garden; and he tried their patience
by staying there for nearly a quarter of an hour.

Then he came briskly up the road to the common. Their eyes began to
shine with the expectation of immediate triumph, when, thirty yards
from the common’s edge, in a sudden access of caution, he bolted for
covert and disappeared in the gorse sixty yards away on their left.
They fell noiselessly back, going as quickly as concealment permitted,
to cut him off. They were successful. They caught him crossing an open
space, yelled “Bang!” together; and in accordance with the rules of the
game Wiggins fell to the ground.

They scalped him with yells of such a piercing triumph that the
immemorial oaks for a quarter of a mile round emptied themselves
hastily of the wood-pigeons feeding on their acorns.

Wiggins rose gloomily, gloomily took from his knickerbockers pocket his
tattered and grimy notebook, gloomily made an entry in it, and gloomily
said: “That makes you two games ahead.” Then he spurned the earth and
added: “I’m going to have a bicycle.”

The Twins looked at each other darkly; Erebus scowled, and a faint
frown broke the ineffable serenity of the Terror’s face.

“There’ll be no living with Wiggins now, he’ll be so cocky,” said
Erebus bitterly.

“Oh, no; he won’t,” said the Terror. “But we ought to have bicycles,
too. We want them badly. We never get really far from the village. We
always get stopped on the way—rats, or something.” And his guileless,
dreamy blue eyes swept the distant autumn hills with a look of
yearning.

“There are orchards over there where they don’t know us,” said Erebus
wistfully.

“We _must_ have bicycles. I’ve been thinking so for a long time,” said
the Terror.

“We must have the moon!” said Erebus with cold scorn.

“Bicycles aren’t so far away,” said the Terror sagely.

They moved swiftly across the common. Erebus poured forth a long
monotonous complaint about the lack of bicycles, which, for them, made
this Cosmic All a mere time-honored cheat. With ears impervious to his
sister’s vain lament, the Terror strode on serenely thoughtful,
pondering this pressing problem. Now and again, for obscure but
profound reasons, Wiggins spurned the earth and proceeded by leaps and
bounds.

Possibly it was the monotonous plaint of his sister which caused the
Terror to say: “I’ve got a penny. We’ll go and get some bull’s-eyes.”

At any rate the monotonous plaint ceased.

They had returned on their steps across the common, and were nearing
the village, when they met three small boys. One of them carried a
kitten.

Erebus stopped short. “What are you going to do with that kitten, Billy
Beck?” she said.

“We be goin’ to drown ’im in the pond,” said Billy Beck in the
important tones of an executioner.

Erebus sprang; and the kitten was in her hands. “You’re not going to do
anything of the sort, you little beast!” she said.

The round red face of Billy Beck flushed redder with rage and
disappointment, and he howled:

“Gimme my kitty! Mother says she won’t ’ave ’im about the ’ouse, an’ I
could drown ’im.”

“You won’t have him,” said Erebus.

Billy Beck and his little brothers, robbed of their simple joy, burst
into blubbering roar of “It’s ourn! It ain’t yourn! It’s ourn!”

“It isn’t! A kitten isn’t any one’s to drown!” cried Erebus.

The Terror gazed at Erebus and Billy Beck with judicial eyes, the cold
personification of human justice. Erebus edged away from him ready to
fly, should human justice intervene actively. The Terror put his hand
in his pocket and fumbled. He drew out a penny, and looked at it
earnestly. He was weighing the respective merits of justice and
bull’s-eyes.

“Here’s a penny for your kitten. You can buy bull’s-eyes with it,” he
said with a sigh, and held out the coin.

A sudden greed sparkled in Billy Beck’s tearful eyes. “’E’s worth
more’n a penny—a kitty like ’im!” he blubbered.

“Not to drown. It’s all you’ll get,” said the Terror curtly. He tossed
the penny to Billy’s feet, turned on his heel and went back across the
common away from the village. Some of the brightness faded out of the
faces of Erebus and Wiggins.

“I wouldn’t have given him a penny. He was only going to drown the
kitten,” said Erebus in a grudging tone.

“It was his kitten. We couldn’t take it without paying for it,” said
the Terror coldly.

Erebus followed him, cuddling the kitten and talking to it as she went.

Presently Wiggins spurned the earth and said, “There ought to be a home
for kittens nobody wants—and puppies.”

The Terror stopped short, and said: “By Jove! There’s Aunt Amelia!”

Erebus burst into a bitter complaint of the stinginess of Aunt Amelia,
who had more money than all the rest of the family put together, and
yet never rained postal orders on deserving nieces and nephews, but
spent it all on horrid cats’ homes.

“That’s just it,” said the Terror in a tone of considerable animation.
“Come along; I want you to write a letter.”

“I’m not going to write any disgusting letter!” cried Erebus hotly.

“Then you’re not going to get any bicycle. Come on. I’ll look out the
words in the dictionary, and Wiggins can help because, seeing so much
of his father, he’s got into the way of using grammar. It’ll be useful.
Come on!”

They came on, Wiggins, as always, deeply impressed by the importance of
being a helper of the Twins, for they were in their fourteenth year,
and only ten brief wet summers had passed over his own tousled head,
Erebus clamoring to have her suddenly aroused curiosity gratified.
Practise had made the Terror’s ears impervious at will to his sister’s
questions, which were frequent and innumerable. Without a word of
explanation he led the way home; without a word he set her down at the
dining-room table with paper and ink before her, and sat down himself
on the opposite side of it, a dictionary in his hand and Wiggins by his
side.

Then he said coldly: “Now don’t make any blots, or you’ll have to do it
all over again.”

“I never make blots! It’s you that makes blots!” cried Erebus, ruffled.
“Mr. Etheridge says I write ever so much better than you do. Ever so
much better.”

“That’s why you’re writing the letter and not me,” said the Terror
coldly. “Fire away: ‘My dear Aunt Amelia’—I say, Wiggins, what’s the
proper words for ‘awfully keen’?”

“‘Keen’ is ‘interested’—I don’t know how many ‘r’s’ there are in
‘interested’—and ‘awfully’ is an awfully difficult word,” said Wiggins,
pondering.

The Terror looked up “interested” in the dictionary with a laborious
painfulness, and announced triumphantly that there was but a single “r”
in it; then he said, “What’s the right word for ‘awfully,’ Wiggins?
Buck up!”

“‘Tremendously,’” said Wiggins with the air of a successful Columbus.

“That’s it,” said the Terror. “‘My dear Aunt Amelia: I have often heard
that you are tremendously interested in cats’ homes’”—

“I should think you had!” said Erebus.

“Now don’t jabber, please; just stick to the writing,” said the Terror.
“I’ve got to make this letter a corker; and how can I think if you
jabber?”

Erebus made a hideous grimace and bent to her task.

“‘Little Deeping wants a cats’ home awfully’—no: ‘tremendously.’ I like
that word ‘tremendously’; it means something,” said the Terror.

“You’re jabbering yourself now,” said Erebus unpleasantly.

Ruffling his fair hair in the agony of composition, the Terror
continued: “‘The quantity of kittens that are drowned is horrible’—that
ought to fetch her; kittens are so much nicer than cats—‘and I have
been thinking’—Oughtn’t you to put in some stops?”

“I’m putting in stops—lots,” said Erebus contemptuously.

“‘I have been thinking—that if you wanted to have a cats’ home
here’—What’s the right word for ‘running a thing,’ Wiggins?”

Wiggins frowned deeply; a number of his freckles seemed to run into one
another.

“There is a word ‘overseer’—slaves have them,” he said cautiously.

The Terror sought that word painfully in the dictionary, spelled it
out, and continued: “‘I could overseer it for you. I have got my eye on
a building which would suit us tremendously well. But these things cost
money, and it would not be any use starting with less than thirty
pounds’—

“Thirty pounds! My goodness!” cried Erebus; and her eyes opened wide.

“We may as well go the whole hog,” said the Terror philosophically. “Go
on: ‘Or else just as the cats get to be happy and feel it was a real
home—’ What’s the word for ‘bust up,’ Wiggins?”

“Burst up,” said Wiggins without hesitation.

“No, no; not the grammar—the right word! Oh, I know; ‘go bankrupt’—‘it
might go bankrupt. So it you would like to have a cats’ home here and
send me some money, I will start it at once. Your affectionate nephew,
Hyacinth Wolfram Dangerfield.’ There!” said the Terror with a sigh of
relief.

“But you’ve left me out altogether,” said Erebus in a suddenly
aggrieved tone.

“I should jolly well think I had! You know that ever since you stayed
with Aunt Amelia, and taught her parrot to say ‘Dam,’ she won’t have
anything to do with you,” said the Terror firmly.

“There’s no pleasing some people,” said Erebus mournfully. “When I went
there the silly old parrot couldn’t say a thing; and when I came away,
he could say ‘Dam! Dam! Dam!’ from morning till night without making a
mistake.”

“It’s a word people don’t like,” said the Terror.

“Well, I and the parrot meant a dam in a river. I told Aunt Amelia so,”
said Erebus firmly.

“She might not believe you; she doesn’t know how truthfully we’ve been
brought up,” said the Terror. “Go on; sign my name to the letter.”

“That’s forgery. You ought to sign your name yourself,” said Erebus.

“No; you write my name better than I do; and it will go better with the
rest of the letter. Sign away,” said the Terror firmly.

Erebus signed away, and then she said: “But what good’s the money going
to be to us, if we’ve got to spend it on a silly old cats’ home? It
only means a lot of trouble.”

The guilelessness deepened and deepened on the Terror’s face. “Well,
you see, there aren’t many cats in Little Deeping—not enough to fill a
cats’ home decently,” he said slowly. “We should have to have bicycles
to collect them—from Great Deeping, and Muttle Deeping, and farther
off.”

Erebus gasped; and the light of understanding illumined her charming
face, as she cried in a tone of awe not untinctured with admiration:
“Well, you do think of things!”

“I have to,” said the Terror. “If I didn’t we should never have a
single thing.”

The Terror procured a stamp from Mrs. Dangerfield. He did not tell her
of the splendid scheme he was promoting; he only said that he had
thought he would write to Aunt Amelia. Mrs. Dangerfield was pleased
with him for his thought: she wished him to stand well with his
great-aunt, since she was a rich woman without children of her own. She
did not, indeed, suggest that the letter should be shown to her, though
she suspected that it contained some artless request. She thought it
better that the Terror should write to his great-aunt to make requests
rather than not write at all.

The letter posted, the Twins resumed the somewhat jerky tenor of their
lives. Erebus was full of speculations about the changes in their lives
those bicycles would bring about; she would pause in the very middle of
some important enterprise to discuss the rides they would take on them,
the orchards that those machines would bring within their reach. But
the Terror would have none of it; his calm philosophic mind forbade him
to discuss his chickens before they were hatched.

Since her philanthropy was confined entirely to cats, it is not
remarkable that philanthropy, and not intelligence, was the chief
characteristic of Lady Ryehampton. As the purport of her great-nephew’s
letter slowly penetrated her mind, a broad and beaming smile of
gratification spread slowly over her large round face; and as she
handed the letter to Miss Hendersyde, her companion, she cried in
unctuous tones: “The dear boy! So young, but already enthusiastic about
great things!”

Miss Hendersyde looked at her employer patiently; she foresaw that she
was going to have to struggle with her to save her from being once more
victimized. She had come to suspect anything that stirred Lady
Ryehampton to a noble phrase. Her eyes brightened with humorous
appreciation as she read the letter of Erebus; and when she came to the
end of it she opened her mouth to point out that Little Deeping was one
of the last places in England to need a cats’ home. Then she bethought
herself of the whole situation, shut her mouth with a little click, and
her face went blank.

Then she breathed a short silent prayer for forgiveness, smiled and
said warmly: “It’s really wonderful. You must have inspired him with
that enthusiasm yourself.”

“I suppose I must,” said Lady Ryehampton with an air of satisfaction.
“And I must be careful not to discourage him.”

Miss Hendersyde thought of the Terror’s face, his charming sympathetic
manners, and his darned knickerbockers. It was only right that some of
Lady Ryehampton’s money should go to him; indeed that money ought to be
educating him at a good school. It was monstrous that the great bulk of
it should be spent on cats; cats were all very well but human beings
came first. And the Terror was such an attractive human being.

“Yes, it is a dreadful thing to discourage enthusiasm,” she said
gravely.

Lady Ryehampton proceeded to discuss the question whether a cats’ home
could be properly started with thirty pounds, whether she had not
better send fifty. Miss Hendersyde made her conscience quite
comfortable by compromising: she said that she thought thirty was
enough to begin with; that if more were needful, Lady Ryehampton could
give it later. Lady Ryehampton accepted the suggestion.

Having set her employer’s hand to the plow, Miss Hendersyde saw to it
that she did not draw it back. Lady Ryehampton would spend money on
cats, but she could not be hurried in the spending of it. But Miss
Hendersyde kept referring to the Terror’s enterprise all that day and
the next morning, with the result that on the next afternoon Lady
Ryehampton signed the check for thirty pounds. At Miss Hendersyde’s
suggestion she drew the money in cash; and Miss Hendersyde turned it
into postal orders, for there is no bank at Little Deeping.

On the third morning the registered letter reached Colet House. The
excited Erebus, who had been watching for the postman, received it from
him, signed the receipt with trembling fingers, and dashed off with the
precious packet to the Terror in the orchard.

The Terror took it from her with flawless serenity and opened it
slowly.

But as he counted the postal orders, a faint flush covered his face;
and he said in a somewhat breathless tone: “Thirty pounds—well!”

Erebus executed a short but Bacchic dance which she invented on the
spur of that marvelous moment.

“It’s splendid—splendid!” she cried. “It’s the best thing you ever
thought of!”

The Terror put the postal orders back into the envelope, and put the
envelope into the breast pocket of his coat. A frown of the most
thoughtful consideration furrowed his brow. Then he said firmly: “The
first thing, to do is to get the bicycles. If once we’ve got them, no
one will take them away from us.”

“Of course they won’t,” said Erebus, with eager acceptance of his idea.

The breakfast-bell rang; and they went into the house, Erebus spurning
the earth as she went, in the very manner of Wiggins.

In the middle of breakfast the Terror said in a casual tone and with a
casual air, as if he was not greatly eager for the boon: “May we have
the cow-house for our very own, Mum?”

“Oh, Terror! Surely you don’t want to keep ferrets!” cried Mrs.
Dangerfield, who lived in fear of the Terror’s developing that
inevitable boyish taste.

“Oh, no; but if we had the cow-house to do what we liked with, I think
we could make a little pocket-money out of it.”

“I am afraid you’re growing terribly mercenary,” said his mother; then
she added with a sigh: “But I don’t wonder at it, seeing how hard up
you always are. You can have the cow-house. It’s right at the end of
the paddock—well away from the house—so that I don’t see that you can
do any harm with it whatever you do. But how are you going to make
pocket-money out of it?”

“Oh, I haven’t got it all worked out yet,” said the Terror quickly.
“But we’ll tell you all about it when we have. Thanks ever so much for
the cow-house.”

For the rest of breakfast he left the conversation to Erebus.

The Terror was blessed with a masterly prudence uncommon indeed in a
boy of his years. He changed but one of the six postal orders at Little
Deeping—that would make talk enough—and then, having begged a holiday
from the vicar, he took the train to Rowington, their market town, ten
miles away, taking Erebus with him. There he changed three more postal
orders; and then the Twins took their way to the bicycle shop, with
hearts that beat high.

The Terror set about the purchase in a very careful leisurely way
which, in any one else, would have exasperated the highly strung Erebus
to the very limits of endurance; but where the Terror was concerned she
had long ago learned the futility of exasperation. He began by an
exhaustive examination of every make of bicycle in the shop; and he
made it with a thoroughness that worried the eager bicycle-seller, one
of those smart young men who pamper a chin’s passion for receding by
letting a straggly beard try to cover it, till his nerves were all on
edge. Then the Terror, drawing a handful of sovereigns out of his
pocket and gazing at them lovingly, seemed unable to make up his mind
whether to buy two bicycles or one; and the bearded but chinless young
man perspired with his eloquent efforts to demonstrate the advantage of
buying two. He was quite weary when the persuaded Terror proceeded to
develop the point that there must be a considerable reduction in price
to the buyer of two bicycles. Then he made his offer: he would give
fourteen pounds for two eight-pound-ten bicycles. His serenity was
quite unruffled by the seller’s furious protests. Then the real
struggle began. The Terror came out of it with two bicycles, two lamps,
two bells and two baskets of a size to hold a cat; the seller came out
of it with fifteen pounds; and the triumphant Twins wheeled their
machines out of the shop.

The Terror stood still and looked thoughtfully up and down High Street.
Then he said: “We’ve saved the cats’ home quite two pounds.”

“Yes,” said Erebus.

“And it’s made me awfully hungry and thirsty doing it,” said the
Terror.

“It must have—arguing like that,” said Erebus quickly; and her eyes
brightened as she caught his drift.

“Well, I think the home ought to pay for refreshment. It’s a long ride
home,” said the Terror.

“Of course it ought,” said Erebus with decision.

Without more ado they wheeled their bicycles down the street to a
confectioner’s shop, propped them up carefully against the curb, and
entered the shop with an important moneyed air.

At the end of his fourth jam tart the Terror said: “Of course overseers
have a salary.”

“Of course they do,” said Erebus.

“That settles the matter of pocket-money,” said the Terror. “We’ll have
sixpence a week each.”

“Only sixpence?” said Erebus in a tone of the liveliest surprise.

“Well, you see, there are the bicycles. I don’t think we can make it
more than sixpence. And I tell you what: we shall have to keep
accounts. I’ll buy an account-book. You’re very good at
arithmetic—you’ll like keeping accounts,” said the Terror suavely.

Since her mouth was full of luscious jam tart, Erebus did not feel that
it would be delicate at that moment to protest. Therefore on leaving
the shop the Terror bought an account-book. His distrust of literature
prevented him from paying more than a penny for it. From the
stationer’s he went to an ironmonger’s and bought a saw, a brace, a
gimlet, a screw-driver and two gross of screws—his tool-box had long
needed refilling. Then they mounted their machines proudly (they had
learned to ride on the machines of acquaintances) and rode home. After
their visit to the confectioner’s they rode rather sluggishly.

They were not hungry, far from it, at the moment; but half-way home the
Terror turned out of the main road into the lanes, and they paused at a
quiet orchard, in a lovely unguarded spot, and filled the cat-basket on
Erebus’ bicycle with excellent apples. The tools had been packed into
the Terror’s basket. They did not disturb the farmer’s wife at the busy
dinner-hour; the Terror threw the apples over the orchard hedge to
Erebus.

As he remembered his bicycle he said dreamily: “I shouldn’t wonder if
these bicycles didn’t pay for themselves in time.”

“I said there were orchards out here where they didn’t know us,” said
Erebus, biting into a Ribston pippin.

They reached home in time for lunch and locked away their bicycles in
the cow-house. At lunch they were reticent about their triumphs of the
morning.

After lunch they went to the cow-house and took measurements. It had
long been unoccupied by cows and needed little cleaning. It was quite
suitable to their purpose, a brick building with a slate roof and of a
size to hold two cows. The measurements made, they went, with an
important moneyed air, down to the village carpenter, the only timber
merchant in the neighborhood, and bought planks from him. There was
some discussion before his idea about the price of planks and that of
the Terror were in exact accord; and as he took the money he said, with
some ruefulness, that he was a believer in small profits and quick
returns. Since immediate delivery was part of the bargain, he forthwith
put the planks on a hand-cart and wheeled them up to Colet House. The
Twins, eager to be at work, helped him.

For the rest of the day the Terror applied his indisputable
constructive genius to the creation of cat-hutches. That evening Erebus
wrote his warm letter of thanks to Lady Ryehampton.

The next morning, with a womanly disregard of obligation, Erebus
proposed that they should forthwith mount their bicycles and sally
forth on a splendid foray. The Terror would not hear of it.

“No,” he said firmly. “We’re going to get the cats’ home finished
before we use those bicycles at all. Then nobody can complain.”

He lost no time setting to work on it, and worked till it was time to
go down to the vicarage for his morning’s lessons with the vicar. He
set to work again as soon as he returned; he worked all the afternoon;
and he saw to it that Erebus worked, too.

In the middle of the afternoon Wiggins came. He had spent a fruitless
hour lying in wait on the common to scalp the Twins as they sallied
forth into the world, and then had come to see what had kept them
within their borders. He was deeply impressed by the sight of the
bicycles, but not greatly surprised: his estimation of the powers of
his friends was too high for any of their exploits to surprise him
greatly. But he was somewhat aggrieved that they should have obtained
their bicycles before he had obtained his. None the less he helped them
construct the cats’ home with enthusiasm.

For three strenuous days they persisted in their untiring effort. So
much sustained carpentering was hard on their hands; many small pieces
were chipped out of them. But their spirits never flagged; and by
sunset on the third day they had constructed accommodation for thirty
cats. It may be that the wooden bars of the hutches were not all of the
same breadth, but at any rate they were all of the same thickness: and
it would be a slim cat, indeed, that would squirm through them.

At sunset on the third day the exultant trio gazed round the
transformed cow-house with shining triumphant eyes; then Erebus said
firmly: “What we want now is cats.”




 CHAPTER IV
AND THE VISIT OF INSPECTION


Cats did not immediately flow in, though the Twins, riding round the
countryside on their bicycles, spread the information that they were
willing to afford a home to such of those necessary animals as their
owners no longer needed. They had, indeed, one offer of a cat suffering
from the mange; but the Terror rejected it, saying coldly to its owner
that theirs was a home, not a hospital.

The impatient Erebus was somewhat vexed with him for rejecting it: she
pointed out that even a mangy cat was a beginning.

Slowly they grew annoyed that the home on which they had lavished such
strenuous labor remained empty; and at last the Terror said: “Look
here: I’m going to begin with kittens.”

“How will you get kittens, if you can’t get cats? Everybody likes
kittens. It’s only when they grow up and stop playing that they don’t
want them,” said Erebus with her coldest scorn.

“I’m going to buy them,” said the Terror firmly. “I’m going to give
threepence each for kittens that can just lap. We don’t want kittens
that can’t lap. They’d be too much trouble.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Erebus, brightening.

“It’ll stop them drowning kittens all right. The only thing I’m not
sure about is the accounts.”

“You’re always bothering about those silly old accounts!” said Erebus
sharply.

She resented having had to enter in their penny ledger the items of
their expenditure with conspicuous neatness under his critical eye.

“Well, I don’t think the kittens ought to go down in the accounts. Aunt
Amelia is so used to cats’ homes that are given their cats. She’s told
me all about it: how people write and ask for their cats to be taken
in.”

“_I_ don’t want them to go down. It makes all the less accounts to
keep,” said Erebus readily.

“Well, that’s settled,” said the Terror cheerfully.

Once more the Twins rode round the countryside, spreading abroad the
tidings of their munificent offer of threepence a head for kittens who
could just lap.

But kittens did not immediately flow in; and the complaints of the
impatient Erebus grew louder and louder. There was no doubt that she
loved a grievance; and even more she loved making no secret of that
grievance to those about her. Since she could only discuss this
grievance with the Terror and Wiggins, they heard enough about it.
Indeed, her complaints were at last no small factor in her patient
brother’s resolve to take action; and he called her and Wiggins to a
council.

He opened the discussion by saying: “We’ve got to have kittens, or
cats. We can’t have any pocket-money for ‘overseering’ till there’s
something to overseer.”

“And that splendid cats’ home we’ve made stopping empty all the time,”
said Erebus in her most bitterly aggrieved tone.

“I don’t mind that. I’m sick of hearing about it,” said the Terror
coldly. “But I do want pocket-money; and besides, Aunt Amelia will soon
be wanting to know what’s happening to the home; and she’ll make a fuss
if there aren’t any cats in it. So we must have cats.”

“Well, I tell you what it is: we must take cats. There are cats all
over the country; and when we’re out bicycling, a good way from home,
we could easily pick up one or two at a time and bring them back with
us. We ought to be able to get four a day, counting kittens; and in
eight days the home would be full and two over.”

“And we should be prosecuted for stealing them,” said the Terror
coldly.

“But they’d be ever so much better off in the home, properly looked
after and fed,” protested Erebus.

“That wouldn’t make any difference. No; it’s no good trying to get them
that way,” said the Terror in a tone of finality.

“Well, they won’t come of themselves,” said Erebus.

“They would with valerian,” said Wiggins.

“Who’s Valerian?” said Erebus.

“It isn’t a who. It’s a drug at the chemist’s,” said Wiggins. “I’ve
been talking to my father about cats a good deal lately, and he says if
you put valerian on a rag and drag it along the ground, cats will
follow it for miles.”

“Your father seems to know everything—such a lot of useful things as
well as higher mathematics,” said the Terror.

“That’s why he has a European reputation,” said Wiggins; and he spurned
the earth.

That afternoon the Twins bicycled into Rowington and bought a bottle of
the enchanting drug. Just before they reached the village, on their way
home, the Terror produced a rag with a piece of string tied to it,
poured some valerian on it and trailed it after his bicycle through the
village to his garden gate.

The result demonstrated the accuracy of the scientific knowledge of the
father of Wiggins. All that evening and far into the night twelve cats
fought clamorously round the house of the Dangerfields.

The next day the Terror turned the cats’ home into a cat-trap. He cut a
hole in the bottom of its door large enough to admit a cat and fitted
it with a hanging flap which a cat would readily push open from the
outside, but lacked the intelligence to raise from the inside. He was
late finishing it, and went from it to his dinner.

They had just come to the end of the simple meal when they heard a ring
at the back door; and old Sarah came in to say that Polly Cotteril had
come from the village with some kittens. The Twins excused themselves
politely to their mother, and hurried to the kitchen to find that Polly
had brought no less than five small kittens in a basket.

Forthwith the Terror filled a saucer with milk and applied the lapping
test. Four of the kittens lapped the milk somewhat feebly, but they
lapped. The fifth would not lap. It only mewed. Therefore the Terror
took only four of the kittens, giving Polly a shilling for them. The
fifth he returned to her, bidding her bring it back when it could lap.

They took the four kittens down to the cats’ home; and since they were
so small, they put them in one hutch for warmth, with a saucer of milk
to satisfy their hunger during the night.

“Now we’ve got these kittens, we needn’t bother about getting cats,”
said the Terror as they returned to the house. “And I’m glad it is
kittens and not cats. Kittens eat less.”

“Then you’ve had all the trouble of making that little door for
nothing,” said Erebus.

“It’s an emergency exit—like the theaters have—only it’s an entrance,”
said the Terror. “But thank goodness, we’ve begun at last; now we can
have salaries for ‘overseering’.”

During the course of the next week they added seven more small kittens
to their stock; and it seemed good to the Terror to inform Lady
Ryehampton that the home was already constructed and in process of
occupation. Accordingly Erebus wrote a letter, by no means devoid of
enthusiasm, informing her that it already held eleven inmates, “saved
from the awful death of drowning.” Lady Ryehampton replied promptly in
a spirit of warm gratification that they had been so quick starting it.

But with eleven inmates in the home the Twins presently found
themselves grappling earnestly with the food problem and the
account-book.

The Terror was not unfitted for financial operations. Till they were
six years old the Twins had lived luxuriously at Dangerfield Hall, in
Monmouth, with toys beyond the dreams of Alnaschar. Then their father
had fallen into the hands of a firm of gambling stock-brokers, had
along with them lost nearly all his money, and presently died, leaving
Mrs. Dangerfield with a very small income indeed. All the while since
his death it had been a hard struggle to make both ends meet; and the
Twins had had many a lesson in learning to do without the desires of
their hearts.

But their desires were strong; the wits of the Terror were not weak;
and taking one month with another the Twins had as much pocket-money as
the bulk of the children of the well-to-do. But it did not come in the
way of a regular allowance; it had to be obtained by diplomacy or work;
and the processes of getting it had given the Terror the liveliest
interest in financial matters. He was resolved that the cats’ home and
the wages of “overseering” should last as long as possible.

But it soon grew clear to him that, with milk at threepence halfpenny a
quart, the kittens would soon drink themselves out of house and home.

He discussed the matter with Erebus and Wiggins; and they agreed with
him that milk spelled ruin. But they could see no way of reducing the
price of milk; and they were sure that it was the necessary food for
growing kittens.

Their faces were somewhat gloomy at the end of the discussion; and a
heavy silence had fallen on them. Then of a sudden the face of the
Terror brightened; and he said with a touch of triumph in his tone:
“I’ve got it; we’ll feed them on skim-milk.”

“They feed pigs on skim-milk, not kittens,” said Erebus scornfully.

That was indeed the practise at Little Deeping. Butter-making was its
chief industry; and the skim-milk went to the pigs.

“If it fattens pigs, it will fatten kittens,” said the Terror firmly.

“But how can we get it? They don’t sell it about here,” said Erebus.
“And you know what they are: if Granfeytner didn’t sell skim-milk,
nobody’s going to sell skim-milk to-day.”

“Oh, yes: old Stubbs will sell it,” said the Terror confidently.

“Old Stubbs! But he hates us worse than any one!” cried Erebus.

“Oh, yes; he doesn’t like us. But he’s awfully keen on money; every one
says so. And he won’t care whose money he gets so long as he gets it.
Come on; we’ll go and talk to him about it,” said the Terror.

The Twins went firmly across the common to the house of farmer Stubbs
and knocked resolutely. The maid, who was well aware that her master
and the Twins were not on friendly terms, admitted them with some
hesitation. The Twins had never entered the farmer’s house before,
though they had often entered his orchard; and they felt slightly
uncomfortable. They found the parlor into which they were shown
uncommonly musty.

Presently Mr. Stubbs came to them, pulling doubtfully at the Newgate
fringe that ran bristling under his chin, with a look of deep suspicion
in his small, ferrety, red-rimmed eyes. Even when he learned that they
had come on business, his face did not brighten till the Terror
incidentally dropped a sovereign on the floor and talked of cash
payments. Then his face shone; he made the admission, cautiously, that
he might be induced to sell skim-milk; and then they came to the
discussion of prices. Mr. Stubbs wanted to see skim-milk in quarts; the
Terror could only see it in pails; and this difference of point of view
nearly brought the negotiations to an abrupt end twice. But the
Terror’s suavity prevented a complete break; and in the end they struck
a bargain that he should have as much skim-milk as he required at
threepence halfpenny the pailful.

In the course of the next fortnight they admitted twelve more kittens
to the home; and the Terror had yet another idea. Milk alone seemed an
insufficient diet for them; and he approached the village baker on the
matter of stale bread. There were more negotiations; and in the end the
Terror made a contract with the baker for a supply of it at nearly his
own price. Now he fed the kittens on bread and milk; they throve on it;
and it went further than plain milk.

The Twins enjoyed but little leisure. They had been busy filling
certain shelves, which they had fixed up above the cat-hutches, with
the best apples the more peaceful and sparsely populated parts of the
countryside afforded. But what spare time he had the Terror devoted to
a great feat of painting. He painted in white letters on a black
board:—

LADY RYEHAMPTON’S CATS’ HOME

The letters varied somewhat in size, and they were not everything that
could be desired in the matter of shape; but both Erebus and Wiggins
agreed that it was extraordinarily effective, and that if ever their
aunt saw it she would be deeply gratified.

With this final open advertisement of their enterprise ready to be
fixed up, they felt that the time had come to take their mother
formally into their confidence. She had learned of the formation of the
cats’ home from old Sarah; and several of her neighbors had talked to
her about it, and seemed surprised by her inability to give them
details about its ultimate scope and purpose, for it had excited the
interest of the neighborhood and was a frequent matter of discussion
for fully a week. She had explained to them that she never interfered
with the Twins when they were engaged in any harmless employment, and
that she was only too pleased that they had found a harmless employment
that filled as much of their time as did the cats’ home. Moreover, the
Terror had told her that they did not wish her to see it till it had
been brought to its finished state and was in thorough working order.
Therefore she had no idea of its size or of the cost of its
construction. Like every one else she supposed it to be a ramshackle
affair of makeshifts constructed from old planks and hen-coops.

Moreover she had not learned that the Twins possessed bicycles, for
they were judicious in their use. They were careful to sally forth when
she was taking her siesta after lunch; they went across the common and
came back across the common and their neighbors saw them riding very
little.

When at last she was invited to come to see their finished work, she
accepted the invitation with becoming delight, and made her inspection
of the home with a becoming seriousness and a growing surprise. She
expressed her admiration of its convenience, its cleanliness, and the
extensive scale on which it was being run. She agreed with the Terror
that to have saved so many kittens from the awful death of drowning was
a great work. But she asked no questions, not even how it was that the
cats’ home was fragrant with the scent of hidden apples. She knew that
an explanation, probably of an admirable plausibility, was about to be
given her.

Then at the end of her inspection, the Terror said carelessly: “The
bicycles are for bringing kittens from a distance, of course.”

“What? Are those your bicycles?” cried Mrs. Dangerfield. “But wherever
did you get the money from to buy them?”

“Aunt Amelia found the money,” said the Terror. “You know she’s very
keen—tremendously interested in cats’ homes. She thinks we are doing a
great work, as well as you.”

Mrs. Dangerfield’s beautiful eyes were very wide open; and she said
rather breathlessly: “You got money out of your Aunt Amelia for a cats’
home in Little Deeping?”

“Oh, yes,” said the Terror carelessly.

Mrs. Dangerfield turned away hastily to hide her working face: she
_must_ not laugh at their great-aunt before the Twins. She bit her
tongue with a firmness that filled her eyes with tears. It was painful;
but it enabled her to complete her inspection with the required
gravity.

The Terror fixed up the board above the door of the home; and it awoke
a fresh interest among their neighbors in their enterprise. Several of
them, including the squire and the vicar, made visits of inspection to
it; and Wiggins brought his father. All of them expressed an admiration
of the institution and of the methods on which it was conducted. To one
another they expressed an unfavorable opinion of the intelligence of
Lady Ryehampton.

The home was now working quite smoothly; and with a clear conscience
the Twins drew their salary for “overseering.” It provided them with
many of the less expensive desires of their hearts. Now and again
Erebus, mindful of the fact that they had still a little more than ten
pounds left out of the original thirty, urged that it should be raised
to a shilling a week. But the Terror would not consent: he said their
salaries for “overseeing” would naturally be much higher, and that they
would have charged for their work in constructing the home, if it had
not been for the bicycles. As it was, they were bound to work off the
price of the bicycles. Besides, he added with a philosophical air,
six-pence a week for a year was much better than a shilling a week for
six months.

Lady Ryehampton was duly informed that the home now contained
twenty-three inmates; and the children of Great Deeping, Muttle
(probably a corruption of Middle) Deeping, and Little Deeping were
informed that for the time being the home was full. Erebus clamored to
have its full complement of thirty kittens made up; but the Terror
maintained very firmly his contention that twenty-three was quite
enough. Everything was working smoothly. Then one evening just before
dinner there came a loud ringing at the front-door bell.

It was so loud and so importunate that with one accord the Twins dashed
for the door; and Erebus opened it. On the steps stood their Uncle
Maurice; and he wore a harried air.

“Why, it’s Uncle Maurice!” cried Erebus springing upon him and
embracing him warmly.

“It’s Uncle Maurice, mother!” cried the Terror.

“It may be your Uncle Maurice, but I can tell you he’s by no means sure
of it himself! Is it my head or my heels I’m standing on?” said Sir
Maurice faintly, and he wiped his burning brow.

On his words there came up the steps the porter of Little Deeping
station, laden with wicker baskets. From the baskets came the sound of
mewing.

“Whatever is it?” cried Mrs. Dangerfield, kissing her brother.

“Cats for the cats’ home!” said Sir Maurice Falconer.

He waved his startled kinsfolk aside while the baskets were ranged in a
neat row on the floor of the hall, then he paid the porter, feebly, and
shut the door after him with an air of exhaustion. He leaned back
against it and said:

“I had a sudden message—Aunt Amelia is going to pay a surprise visit to
this inf—this cats’ home these little friends are pretending to run for
her. I saw that there was no time to lose—there must be a cats’ home
with cats in it—or she’d cut them both out of her will. I bought
cats—all over London—they’ve been with me ever since—yowling—they
yowled in the taxi—all over London—they traveled down as far as
Rowington with me and an old gentleman—a high-spirited old
gentleman—yowling—not only the cats but the old gentleman, too—-and
they traveled from Rowington to Little Deeping with me and two maiden
ladies—timid maiden ladies!—yowling! But come on: we’ve got to make a
cats’ home at once!” And he picked up one of the plaintive baskets with
the air of a man desperately resolved to act on the instant or perish.

“But we’ve got a cats’ home—only it’s full of kittens,” said Erebus
gently.

“Good heavens! Do you mean to say I’ve gone through this nightmare for
nothing?” cried Sir Maurice, dropping the basket.

“Oh, no; it was awfully good of you!” said the Terror with swift
politeness. “The cats will come in awfully useful.”

“They’ll make the home look so much more natural. All kittens isn’t
natural,” said Erebus.

“And they’ll be such a pleasant surprise for Aunt Amelia. She was only
expecting kittens,” said the Terror.

“What?” howled Sir Maurice. “Do you mean to say I’ve parleyed for hours
with a high-spirited gentleman and two—two—timid maiden ladies, just to
give your Aunt Amelia a pleasant surprise?”

He sank into a chair and wiped his beaded brow feebly. “I ought to have
had more confidence in you,” he said faintly. “I ought to know your
powers by now. And I did. I know well that any people who have dealings
with you are likely to get a surprise; but I thought your Aunt Amelia
was going to get it; and I’ve got it myself.”

“But you didn’t think that we would humbug Aunt Amelia?” said the
Terror in a pained tone and with the most virtuous air.

“Gracious, no!” cried Sir Maurice. “I only thought that you might
possibly induce her to humbug herself.”

The Twins looked at him doubtfully: there seemed to them more in his
words than met the ear.

“You must be wanting your dinner dreadfully,” said Mrs. Dangerfield.
“And I’m afraid there’s very little for you. But I’ll make you an
omelette.”

“I can not dine amid this yowling,” said Sir Maurice firmly, waving his
hand over the vocal baskets. “These animals must be placed out of
hearing, or I shan’t be able to eat a morsel.”

“We’ll put them in the cats’ home,” said the Terror quickly. “I’ll just
put on a pair of thick gloves. Wiggins’ father—he’s a higher
mathematician, you know, and understands all this kind of thing—says
that hydrophobia is very rare among cats. But it’s just as well to be
careful with these London ones.”

“Oh, lord, I never thought of that,” said Sir Maurice with a shudder.
“I’ve been risking my life as well!”

The Terror put on the gloves and lighted a lantern. He and Erebus
helped carry the cats down to the home; and he put them into hutches.
Their uncle was much impressed by the arrangement of the home.

The cats disposed of, Sir Maurice at last recovered his wonted
self-possession—a self-possession as admirable as the serenity of the
Terror, but not so durable. At dinner he reduced his appreciative
kinsfolk to the last exhaustion by his entertaining account of his
parleying with his excited fellow travelers. He could now view it with
an impartial mind. After dinner he accompanied the Terror to the cats’
home and helped him feed the newcomers with scraps. The rest of the
evening passed peacefully and pleasantly.

If the Twins had a weakness, it was that their desire for thoroughness
sometimes caused them to overdo things; and it was on the way to bed
that the brilliant idea flashed into the mind of Erebus.

She stopped short on the stairs, and with an air of inspiration said:
“We ought to have more cats.”

The Terror stopped short too, pondering the suggestion; then he said:
“By Jove, yes. This would be a good time to work that valerian dodge.
And it would mean that we should have to use our bicycles again for the
good of the home. The more we can say that we’ve used them for it, the
less any one can grumble about them.”

“Most cats are shut up now,” said Erebus.

“Yes; we must catch the morning cats. They get out quite early—when
people start out to work,” said the Terror.

Among the possessions of the Twins was an American clock fitted with an
alarm. The Terror set it for half past five. At that hour it awoke him
with extreme difficulty. He awoke Erebus with extreme difficulty. Five
minutes later they were munching bread and butter in the kitchen to
stay themselves against the cold of the bitter November morning; then
they sallied forth, equipped with rags, string and the bottle of
valerian.

They bicycled to Muttle Deeping. There the Terror poured valerian on
one of the rags and tied it to the bicycle of Erebus. Forthwith she
started to trail it to the cats’ home. He rode on to Great Deeping and
trailed a rag from there through Little Deeping to the cats’ home. When
he reached it he found Erebus’ bicycle in its corner; and when, after
strengthening the trail through the little hanging door with a rag
freshly wetted with the drug, he returned to the house, he found that
she was already in bed again. He made haste back to bed himself.

It had been their intention to go down to the home before breakfast and
put the cats they had attracted to it into hutches. But they slept on
till breakfast was ready; and the fragrance of the coffee and bacon
lured them straight into the dining-room. After all, as Erebus told the
hesitating Terror, there was plenty of time to deal with the new cats,
for Aunt Amelia could not reach Little Deeping before eleven o’clock.
They could not escape from the home. The Twins therefore devoted their
most careful attention to their breakfast with their minds quite at
ease.

Then there came a ring at the front door; and still their minds were at
ease, for they took it that it was a note or a message from a neighbor.
Then Sarah threw open the dining-room door, said “Please, ma’am, it’s
Lady Ryehampton”; and their Aunt Amelia stood, large, round and
formidable, on the threshold. Behind her stood Miss Hendersyde looking
very anxious.

There was a heavy frown on Lady Ryehampton’s stern face; and when they
rose to welcome her, she greeted them with severe stiffness. To Erebus,
the instructor of parrots, she gave only one finger.

Then in deep portentous tones she said: “I came down to pay a surprise
visit to your cats’ home. I always do. It’s the only way I can make
sure that the poor dear things are receiving proper treatment.” The
frown on her face grew rhadamanthine. “And last night I saw your Uncle
Maurice at the station—he did not see me—with cats, London cats, in
baskets. On the labels of two of the baskets I read the names of
well-known London cat-dealers. I do not support a cats’ home at Little
Deeping for London cats bought at London dealers. Why have they been
brought here?”

Sir Maurice opened his mouth to explain; but the Terror was before him:

“It was Uncle Maurice’s idea,” he said. “He didn’t think that there
ought only to be kittens in a cats’ home. We didn’t mind ourselves; and
of course, if he puts cats in it, he’ll have to subscribe to the home.
What we have started it for was kittens—to save them from the awful
death of drowning. We wrote and told you. And we’ve saved quite a lot.”

His limpid blue eyes were wells of candor.

Lady Ryehampton uttered a short snort; and her eyes flashed.

“Do you mean to tell me that your Uncle Maurice is fond enough of cats
to bring them all the way from London to a cats’ home at Deeping? He
hates cats, and always has!” she said fiercely.

“Of course, I hate cats,” said Sir Maurice with cold severity. “But I
hate children’s being brought up to be careless a great deal more. A
cats’ home is not a cats’ home unless it has cats in it; and you’ve
been encouraging these children to grow up careless by calling a
kittens’ home a cats’ home. If you will interfere in their up-bringing,
you have no right to do your best to get them into careless ways.”

Taken aback at suddenly finding herself on the defensive Lady
Ryehampton blinked at him somewhat owlishly: “That’s all very well,”
she said in a less severe tone. “But is there a kittens’ home at all—a
kittens’ home with kittens in it? That’s what I want to know.”

“But we wrote and told you how many kittens we had in the cats’ home.
You don’t think we’d deceive you, Aunt Amelia?” said the Terror in a
deeply injured tone and with a deeply injured air.

“There! I told you that if he said he had kittens in it, there would
be,” said Miss Hendersyde with an air of relief.

“Of course there’s a cats’ home with kittens in it!” said Mrs.
Dangerfield with some heat. “The Terror wouldn’t lie to you!”

“Hyacinth is incapable of deceit!” cried Sir Maurice splendidly.

The Terror did his best to look incapable of deceit; and it was a very
good best.

In some confusion Lady Ryehampton began to stammer: “Well, of
c-c-c-course, if there’s a c-c-cats’ home—but Sir Maurice’s senseless
interference—”

“Senseless interference! Do you call saving children from careless
habits senseless interference?” cried Sir Maurice indignantly.

“You had no business to interfere without consulting me,” said Lady
Ryehampton. Then, with a return of suspicion, she said: “But I want to
see this cats’ home—now!”

“I’ll take you at once,” said the Terror quickly, and politely he
opened the door.

They all went, Mrs. Dangerfield snatching a hooded cloak, Sir Maurice
his hat and coat from pegs in the hall as they went through it. When
they came into the paddock their ears became aware of a distant
high-pitched din; and the farther they went down it the louder and more
horrible grew the din.

Over the broad round face of Lady Ryehampton spread an expression of
suspicious bewilderment; Mrs. Dangerfield’s beautiful eyes were wide
open in an anxious wonder; the piquant face of Erebus was set in a
defiant scowl; and Sir Maurice looked almost as anxious as Mrs.
Dangerfield. Only the Terror was serene.

“Surely those brutes I brought haven’t got out of their cages,” said
Sir Maurice.

“Oh, no; those must be visiting cats,” said the Terror calmly.

“Visiting cats?” said Lady Ryehampton and Sir Maurice together.

“Yes: we encourage the cats about here to come to the home so that if
ever they are left homeless they will know where to come,” said the
Terror, looking at Lady Ryehampton with eyes that were limpid wells of
guilelessness.

“Now that’s a very clever idea!” she exclaimed. “I must tell the
managers of my other homes about it and see whether they can’t do it,
too. But what are these cats doing?”

“It sounds as if they were quarreling,” said the Terror calmly.

It did sound as if they were quarreling; at the door of the home the
din was ear-splitting, excruciating, fiendish. It was as if the voices
of all the cats in the county were raised in one piercing battle-song.

The Terror bade his kinsfolk stand clear; then he threw open the
door—wide. Cats did not come out.… A large ball of cats came out,
gyrating swiftly in a haze of flying fur. Ten yards from the door it
dissolved into its component parts, and some thirty cats tore, yelling,
to the four quarters of the heavens.

After that stupendous battle-song the air seemed thick with silence.

The Terror broke it; he said in a tone of doubting sadness: “I
sometimes think it sets a bad example to the kittens.”

Sir Maurice turned livid in the grip of some powerful emotion. He
walked hurriedly round to the back of the home to conceal it from human
ken. There with his handkerchief stuffed into his mouth, he leaned
against the wall, and shook and rocked and kicked the irresponsive
bricks feebly.

But the serene Terror firmly ushered Lady Ryehampton into the home with
an air of modest pride. A little dazed, she entered upon a scene of
perfect, if highly-scented, peace. Twenty-three kittens and eight cats
sat staring earnestly through bars of their hutches in a dead
stillness. Their eyes were very bright. By a kindly provision of nature
they had been able, in the darkness, to follow the fortunes of that
vociferous fray.

In three minutes Lady Ryehampton had forgotten the battle-song. She was
charmed, lost in admiration of the home, of the fatness and healthiness
of the blinking kittens, the neatness and the cleanliness. She gushed
enthusiastic approbation. “To think,” she cried, “that you have done
this yourself! A boy of thirteen!”

“Erebus did quite as much as I did,” said the Terror quickly.

“And Wiggins helped a lot. He’s a friend of ours,” said Erebus no less
quickly.

Lady Ryehampton’s face softened to Erebus—to Erebus, the instructor of
parrots.

Sir Maurice joined them. His eyes were red and moist, as if they had
but now been full of tears.

“It’s a very creditable piece of work,” he said in a tone of warm
approval.

Lady Ryehampton looked round the home once more; and her face fell. She
said uneasily: “But you must be heavily in debt.”

“In debt?” said the Terror. “Oh, no; we couldn’t be. Mother would hate
us to be in debt.”

“I thought—a cats’ home—oh, but I _am_ glad I brought my check-book
with me!” cried Lady Ryehampton.

She could not understand why Sir Maurice uttered a short sharp howl.
She did not know that the Terror dug him sharply in the ribs as Erebus
kicked him joyfully on the ankle-bone; that they had simultaneously
realized that the future of the home, the wages of “overseering,” were
secure.




 CHAPTER V
AND THE SACRED BIRD


Lady Ryehampton did not easily tear herself away from the home; and the
Terror did all he could to foster her interest in it. The crowning
effect was the feeding of the kittens, which was indeed a very pretty
sight, since twenty-three kittens could not feed together without many
pauses to gambol and play. The only thing about the home which was not
quite to the liking of Lady Ryehampton was the board over the door. She
liked it as an advertisement of her philanthropy; but she did not like
its form; she preferred her name in straighter letters, all of them of
the same size. At the same time she did not like to hurt the feelings
of the Terror by showing lack of appreciation of his handiwork.

Then she had a happy thought, and said: “By the way, I think that the
board over the door ought to be uniform—the same as the boards over the
entrances of my other cats’ homes. The lettering of them is always in
gold.”

“All right. I’ll get some gold paint, and paint them over,” said the
Terror readily, anxious to humor in every way this dispenser of
salaries.

“No, no, I can’t give you the trouble of doing it all over again,” said
Lady Ryehampton quickly. “I’ll have a board made, and painted in
London—exactly like the board of my cats’ home at Tysleworth—and sent
down to you to fix up.”

“Thanks very much,” said the Terror. “It will save me a great deal of
trouble. Painting isn’t nearly so easy as it looks.”

Lady Ryehampton breathed a sigh of satisfaction. She invited them all
to lunch at The Plough, where she had stayed the night; and Mrs.
Pittaway racked her brains and strained all the resources of her simple
establishment to make the lunch worthy of its giver. As she told her
neighbors later, nobody knew what it was to have a lady of title in the
house. The Twins enjoyed the lunch very much indeed; and even Erebus
was very quiet for two hours after it.

Lady Ryehampton came to tea at Colet House; she paid a last gloating
visit to the cats’ home, wrote a check for ten pounds payable to the
Terror, and in a state of the liveliest satisfaction, took the train to
London.

Sir Maurice stayed till a later train, for he had no great desire to
travel with Lady Ryehampton. Besides, the question what was to be done
with the eight cats he had brought with him, remained to be settled. He
felt that he could not saddle the Twins with their care and up-keep,
since only his unfounded distrust had brought them to the cats’ home.
At the same time he could not bring himself to travel with them any
more.

They discussed the matter. Erebus was inclined to keep the cats,
declaring that it would be so nice to grow their own kittens. The
Terror, looking at the question from the cold monetary point of view,
wished to be relieved of them. In the end it was decided that Sir
Maurice should make terms with one of the dealers from whom he had
bought them, and that the Twins should forward them to that dealer.

The next day the Twins discussed what should be done with this
unexpected ten pounds which Lady Ryehampton had bestowed on the home.
Erebus was for at once increasing their salaries to three shillings a
week. The cautious Terror would only raise them to ninepence each.
Then, keeping rather more than four pounds for current expenses, he put
fifteen pounds in the Post-Office Savings Bank. He thought it a wise
thing to do: it prevented any chance of their spending a large sum on
some sudden overwhelming impulse.

Then for some time their lives moved in a smooth uneventful groove. The
cats were despatched to the London dealer; the neatly painted board
came from Lady Ryehampton and was fixed up in the place of the Terror’s
handiwork; they did their lessons in the morning; they rode out, along
with Wiggins who now had his bicycle, in the afternoons.

Then came December; and early in the month they began to consider the
important matter of their mother’s Christmas present.

One morning they were down at the home, giving the kittens their
breakfasts and discussing it gravely. The kittens were indulging in
engaging gambols before falling into the sleep of repletion which
always followed their meals; but the Twins saw them with unsmiling
eyes, for the graver matter wholly filled their minds. They could see
their way to saving up seven or eight shillings for that present; and
so large a sum must be expended with judgment. It must procure
something not only useful but also attractive.

They had discussed at some length the respective advantages and
attractions of a hair-brush and a tortoise-shell comb to set in the
hair, when Erebus, frowning thoughtfully, said: “I know what she really
wants though.”

“What’s that?” said the Terror sharply.

“It’s one of those fur stoles in the window of Barker’s at Rowington,”
said Erebus. “I heard her sigh when she looked at it. She used to have
beautiful furs once—when father was alive. But she sold them—to get
things for us, I suppose. Uncle Maurice told me so—at least I got it
out of him.”

The Terror was frowning thoughtfully, too; and he said in a tone of
decision: “How much is that stole?”

“Oh, it’s no good thinking about it—it’s three guineas,” said Erebus
quickly.

“That’s a mort o’ money, as old Stubbs says,” said the Terror; and the
frown deepened on his brow.

“I wonder if we could get it?” said Erebus, and a faint hopefulness
dawned in her eyes as she looked at his pondering face. “I should like
to. It must be hard on Mum not to have nice things—much harder than for
us, because we’ve never had them—at least, we had them when we were
small, but we never got used to them. So we’ve forgotten.”

“No, we’re all right as long as we have useful things,” said the
Terror, without relaxing his thoughtful frown. “But you’re right about
Mum—she must be different. I’ve got to think this out.”

“Three guineas is such a lot to think out,” said Erebus despondently.

“I thought out thirty pounds not so very long ago,” said the Terror
firmly. “And if you come to think of it, Mum’s stole is really more
important than bicycles and a cats’ home, though not so useful.”

“But it’s different—we _had_ to have bicycles—you said so,” said Erebus
eagerly.

“Well, we’ve got to have this stole,” said the Terror in a tone of
finality; and the matter settled, his brow smoothed to its wonted
serenity.

“But how?” said Erebus eagerly.

“Things will occur to us. They always do,” said the Terror with a
careless confidence.

They began to put the kittens into their hutches. Half-way through the
operation the Terror paused:

“I wonder if we could sell any of these kittens? Does any one ever buy
kittens?”

“We did; we gave threepence each for these,” said Erebus.

“Ah, but we had to buy something in the way of cats for the home. We
should never have bought a kitten but for that. We shouldn’t have
dreamt of doing such a thing.”

“I should buy kittens if I were rich and hadn’t got any,” said Erebus
in a tone of decision.

“You would, would you? That’s just what I wanted to know: girls will
buy kittens,” said the Terror in a tone of satisfaction. “Well, we’ll
sell these.”

“But we can’t empty the home,” said Erebus.

“We wouldn’t. We’d buy fresh ones, just able to lap, for threepence
each, and sell these at a shilling. We might make nearly a sovereign
that way.”

“So we should—a whole sovereign!” cried Erebus; then she added in a
somewhat envious tone: “You do think of things.”

“I have to. Where should we be, if I didn’t?” said the Terror.

“But who are we going to sell them to? Everybody round here has cats.”

“Yes, they have,” said the Terror, frowning again. “Well, we shall have
to sell them somewhere else.”

They put the sleepy kittens back in their hutches, and walked back to
the house, pondering. The Terror collected the books for his morning’s
work slowly, still thoughtful.

As he was leaving the house he said: “Look here; the place for us to
sell them is Rowington. The people round here sell most of their things
at Rowington—butter and eggs and poultry and rabbits.”

“And Ellen would sell them for us—in the market,” said Erebus quickly.

“Of course she would! You see, you think of things, too!” cried the
Terror; and he went off to his lessons with an almost cheerful air.

After lunch they rode to Great Deeping to discuss with Ellen the matter
of selling their kittens. She had been their nurse for the first four
years of their stay at Colet House; and she had left them to marry a
small farmer. She had an affection for them, especially for the Terror;
and she had not lost touch with them. She welcomed them warmly, ushered
them into her little parlor, brought in a decanter of elderberry wine
and a cake. When she had helped them to cake and poured out their wine,
the Terror broached the matter that had brought them to her house.

Ellen’s mind ran firmly and unswerving in the groove of butter and eggs
and poultry, which she carried every market-day to Rowington in her
pony-cart. She laughed consumedly at the Terror’s belief that any one
would want to buy kittens. But unmoved by her open incredulity, he was
very patient with her and persuaded her to try, at any rate, to sell
their kittens at her stall in Rowington market. Ellen consented to make
the attempt, for she had always found it difficult to resist the Terror
when he had set his mind on a thing, and she was eager to oblige him;
but she held out no hopes of success.

The Terror came away content, since he had gained his end, and did not
share her despondency. Erebus, on the other hand, infected by Ellen’s
pessimism, rode in a gloomy depression.

Presently her face brightened; and with an air of inspiration she said:
“I tell you what: even if we don’t sell those kittens, we can always
buy the stole. There’s all that cats’ home money in the bank. We can
take as much of it as we want, and pay it back by degrees.”

“No, we can’t,” said the Terror firmly. “We’re not going to use that
money for anything but the cats’ home. I promised Mum I wouldn’t.
Besides, she’d like the stole ever so much better if we’d really earned
it ourselves.”

“But we shan’t,” said Erebus gloomily. “If we sold all the kittens, it
will only make twenty-three shillings.”

“Then we must find something else to sell,” said the Terror with
decision.

His mind was running on this line, when a quarter of a mile from Little
Deeping they came upon Tom Cobb leaning over a gate surveying a field
of mangel-wurzel with vacant amiability.

Tom Cobb was the one villager they respected; and he and they were very
good friends. Carping souls often said that Tom Cobb had never done an
honest day’s work in his life. Yet he was the smartest man in the
village, the most neatly dressed, always with money in his pocket.

It was common knowledge that his fortunate state arose from his
constitutional disability to observe those admirable laws which have
been passed for the protection of the English pheasants from all
dangers save the small shot of those who have them fed. Tom Cobb waged
war, a war of varying fortunes against the sacred bird. Sometimes for a
whole season he would sell the victims of the carnage of the war with
never a check to his ardor. In another season some prying gamekeeper
would surprise him glutting his thirst for blood and gold, and an
infuriated bench of magistrates would fine him. The fine was always
paid. Tom Cobb was one of those thrifty souls who lay up money against
a rainy day.

He turned at the sound of their coming; and he and the Twins greeted
one another with smiles of mutual respect. They rode on a few yards;
and then the Terror said, “By Jove!” stopped, slipped off his bicycle,
and wheeled it back to the gate. Erebus followed him more slowly.

“I’ve been wondering if you’d do me a favor, Tom,” said the Terror.
“I’ve always wanted to know how to make a snare. I’ll give you
half-a-crown if you’ll teach me.”

Tom Cobb’s clear blue eyes sparkled at the thought of half-a-crown, but
he hesitated. He knew the Twins; he knew that with them a little
knowledge was a dangerous thing—for others. He foresaw trouble for the
sacred bird; he foresaw trouble for his natural foes, the gamekeepers.
He did not foresee trouble for the Twins; he knew them. And very
distinctly he saw half-a-crown.

He grinned and said slowly, “Yes, Master Terror, I’ll be very ’appy to
teach you ’ow to make a snare.”

“Thank you. I’ll come around to-morrow afternoon, about two,” said the
Terror gratefully.

“It _will_ be nice to know how to make snares!” cried Erebus happily as
they rode on. “I wonder we never thought of it before.”

“We didn’t want a fur stole before,” said the Terror.

The next afternoon Erebus in vain entreated him to take her with him to
Tom Cobb’s cottage to share the lesson in the art of making snares. But
the Terror would not. Often he was indulgent; often he was firm. To-day
he was firm.

He returned from his lesson with a serene face, but he said rather
sadly: “I’ve still a lot to learn. But come on: I’ve got to buy
something in Rowington.”

They rode swiftly into Rowington, for the next day was market-day, and
they had to get the kittens ready for Ellen to sell. At Rowington the
Terror bought copper wire at an ironmonger’s; and he was very careful
to buy it of a certain thickness.

They rode home swiftly, and at once selected six kittens for the
experiment. Much to the surprise and disgust of those kittens, they
washed them thoroughly in the kitchen. They dried them, and decided to
keep them in its warmth till the next morning.

After the washing of the kittens, they betook themselves to the making
of snares. Erebus, ever sanguine, supposed that they would make snares
at once. The Terror had no such expectation; and it was a long while
before he got one at all to his liking.

Remembering Tom Cobb’s instructions, he washed it, and then put on
gloves before setting it in the hole in the hedge through which the
rabbits from the common were wont to enter their garden to eat the
cabbages. He was up betimes next morning, found a rabbit in the snare,
and thrilled with joy. The fur stole had come within the range of
possibility.

Before breakfast they made the toilet of the six chosen kittens,
brushing them with the Terror’s hair-brush till their fur was of a
sleekness it had never known before. Then Erebus adorned the neck of
each with a bow of blue ribbon. Knowing the ways of kittens, she sewed
on the bows, and sewed them on firmly. It could not be doubted that
they looked much finer than ordinary unwashed kittens. Directly after
breakfast, the Twins put three in the basket of either of their
bicycles, rode over to Rowington and handed them over to Ellen.

They would have liked to stay to see what luck she had with them but
they had to return to their lessons. After lunch they made three more
snares; and the Terror found that the fingers of Erebus were, if
anything, more deft at snare-making than his own.

It was late in the afternoon when they reached Rowington again; and
when they came to Ellen’s stall, they found to their joy that the
basket which had held the six kittens was empty.

Ellen greeted them with a smile of the liveliest satisfaction, and
said: “Well, Master Terror, you were right, and I was wrong. I’ve sold
them kitties—every one—and I’ve had two more ordered. It was when the
ladies from the Hill came marketing that they went.”

She opened her purse, took out six shillings, and held them out to the
Terror.

“Five,” said the Terror. “I must pay you a shilling for selling them.
It’s what they call commission.”

“No, sir; I don’t want any commission,” said Ellen firmly. “As long as
those kitties were there, I sold more butter and eggs and fowls than
any one else in the market. I haven’t had such a good day not ever
before. And I’ll be glad to sell as many kitties as you can bring me.”

The Terror pressed her to accept the shilling, but she remained firm.
The Twins rode joyfully home with six shillings.

That night the Terror set his four snares in the hedge of the garden
about the common. He caught three rabbits.

The next morning he was silent and very thoughtful as he helped feed
the kittens and change the bay in the hutches.

At last he said rather sadly: “It’s sometimes rather awkward being a
Dangerfield.”

“Why?” said Erebus surprised.

“Those rabbits,” said the Terror. “I want to sell them. But it’s no
good going into Rowington and trying to sell them to a poulterer. Even
if he wanted rabbits—which he mightn’t—he’d only give me sixpence each
for them. But if I were to sell them myself _here_, I could get
eightpence, or perhaps ninepence each for them. But, you see, a
Dangerfield can’t go about selling things. Uncle Maurice said I had the
makings of a millionaire in me, but a Dangerfield couldn’t go into
business. It’s the family tradition not to. That’s what he said.”

“Perhaps he was only rotting,” said Erebus hopefully.

“No, he wasn’t. I asked Mum, and she said it was the family tradition,
too. I expect that’s why we’re all so hard up.”

“But the squire sells things,” said Erebus quickly. “And you can’t say
he isn’t a gentleman, though the Anstruthers aren’t so old as the
Dangerfields.”

“Of course, he does. He sells some of his game,” said the Terror, in a
tone of great relief. “Game must be all right, and we can easily count
rabbits as game.”

Forthwith he proceeded to count rabbits as game; they put the four they
had caught into the baskets of their bicycles and rode out on a tour of
the neighborhood. The Terror went to the back doors of their well-to-do
neighbors and offered his rabbits to their cooks with the gratifying
result that in less than an hour he had sold all four of them at
eightpence each.

They rode home in triumph: the fur stole was moving toward them. They
had already eight shillings and eightpence out of the sixty-three
shillings.

It was sometimes said of the Twins by the carping that they never knew
when to stop; but in this case it was not their fault that they went
on. It was the fault of the rabbit market. At the fifteenth rabbit,
when they had but eighteen shillings and eightpence toward the stole,
the bottom fell out of it. For the time the desire of Little Deeping to
eat rabbits was sated.

It was also the fault of the insidious cook of Mrs. Blenkinsop, who,
after refusing to buy the fifteenth rabbit, said: “Now, if you was to
bring me a nice fat pheasant twice a week, it would be a very different
thing, Master Dangerfield.”

The Terror looked at her thoughtfully; then he said: “And how much
would you pay for pheasants?”

The cook made a silent appeal to those processes of mental arithmetic
she had learned in her village school, saw her way to a profit of
threepence, perhaps ninepence, on each bird, and said: “Two and
threepence each, sir.”

The Terror looked at her again thoughtfully, considering her offer. He
saw her profit of threepence, perhaps ninepence, and said: “All right,
I’ll bring you two or three a week. But you’ll have to pay cash.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Of course, sir,” said the cook.

“Do you know any one else who’d buy pheasants?” he said.

“Well, there’s Mr. Carrington’s cook,” said the cook slowly. “She has
the management of the housekeeping money like I do. I think she might
buy pheasants from you. Mr. Carrington’s very partial to game.”

“Right,” said the Terror. “And thank you for telling me.”

He rode straight to the house of Mr. Carrington, and broached the
matter to his cook, to whom he had already sold rabbits. He made a
direct offer to her of two pheasants a week at two and threepence each.
After a vain attempt to beat him down to two shillings, she accepted
it.

He rode home in a pleasant glow of triumph: the snares which caught
rabbits would catch pheasants. At first he was for catching those
pheasants by himself. Snaring rabbits was a harmless enterprise;
snaring pheasants was poaching; and poaching was not a girl’s work.
Then he came to the conclusion that he would need the help of Erebus
and must tell her.

When he revealed to her this vision of a new Eldorado, she said: “But
where are you going to get pheasants from?”

“Woods,” said the Terror, embracing the horizon in a sweeping gesture.

Erebus looked round the horizon with greedy eyes; they sparkled
fiercely.

“The only thing is, we don’t know nearly enough about snaring
pheasants. And I don’t like to ask Tom Cobb: he might talk about it;
and that wouldn’t do at all,” said the Terror.

“But there’s nobody else to ask.”

“I don’t know about that. There’s Wiggins’ father. He knows a lot of
useful things besides higher mathematics. The only thing is, we must do
it in such a way that he doesn’t see we’re trying to get anything out
of him.”

“Well, I should think we could do that. He’s really quite simple,” said
Erebus.

“As long as _you_ understand what I’m driving at,” said the Terror.

That evening they prepared eight more kittens for sale at Rowington
market, and carried them into Rowington directly after breakfast next
morning. Ellen told them, with some indignation, that two rival
poultry-sellers had both brought three kittens to sell. The Twins at
once went to inspect them, and came back with the cheering assurance
that those kittens were not a patch on those she was selling. They were
right, for Ellen sold all the eight before a rival sold one; and the
joyful Twins carried home eight more shillings toward the stole.

On the next three afternoons they rode forth with the intention of
coming upon Mr. Carrington by seeming accident; but it was not till the
third afternoon that they came upon him and Wiggins, walking briskly,
about three miles from Little Deeping.

The Twins, as a rule, were wont to shun Mr. Carrington. They had a
great respect for his attainments, but a much greater for his humor. In
Erebus, this respect often took the form of wriggling in his presence.
She did not know what he might say about her next. He was, therefore,
somewhat surprised when they slipped off their bicycles and joined him.
He wondered what they wanted.

Apparently, they were merely in a gregarious mood, yearning for the
society of their fellow creatures; but in about three minutes the talk
was running on pheasants. Mr. Carrington did not like pheasants, except
from the point of view of eating; and he dwelt at length on the
devastation the sacred bird was working in the English countryside:
villages were being emptied and let fall to ruin that it might live
undisturbed; the song-birds were being killed off to give it the woods
to itself.

It seemed but a natural step from the pheasant to the poacher; he was
not aware that he took it at the prompting of the Terror; and he
bewailed the degeneracy of the British rustic, his slow reversion to
the type of neolithic man, owing to the fact that the towns drained the
villages of all the intelligent. The skilful poacher who harried the
sacred bird was fast becoming extinct.

Then, at last, he came to the important matter of the wiles of the
poacher; and the thirsty ears of the Terror drank in his golden words.
He discussed the methods of the gang of poachers and the single poacher
with intelligent relish and more sympathy than was perhaps wise to
display in the presence of the young. The Terror came from that talk
with a firm belief in the efficacy of raisins.

The next afternoon the Twins rode into Rowington and bought a pound of
raisins at the leading grocer’s. They might well have bought them at
Little Deeping, encouraging local enterprise; but they thought
Rowington safer. They always took every possible precaution at the
beginning of an enterprise. They did not ride straight home. Three
miles out of Rowington was a small clump of trees on a hill. At the
foot of the hill, a hundred yards below the clump, lay Great Deeping
wood, acre upon acre. It had lately passed, along with the rest of the
Great Deeping estate, into the hands of Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer, a
pudding-faced, but stanch young Briton of the old Pomeranian strain. He
was not loved in the county, even by landed proprietors of less modern
stocks, for, though he cherished the laudable ambition of having the
finest pheasant shoot in England, and was on the way to realize it, he
did not invite his neighbors to help shoot them. His friends came
wholly from The Polite World which so adorns the illustrated weeklies.

It was in the deep December dusk that the Twins’ came to the clump on
the hill. The Terror lifted their bicycles over the gate and set them
behind the hedge. He removed the pound of raisins from his bicycle
basket to his pocket, and leaving Erebus to keep watch, he stole down
the hedge to the clump, crawled through a gap into it, and walked
through it. One pheasant scuttled out of it, down the hedgerow to the
wood below. The occurrence pleased him. He crawled out of the clump on
the farther side, and proceeded to lay a train of raisins down the
ditch of the hedge to the wood. He did not lay it right down to the
wood lest some inquisitive gamekeeper might espy it. Then he returned
with fine, red Indian caution to Erebus. They rode home well content.

Next evening, with another bag of raisins, they sought the clump again.
Again the Terror laid a trail of raisins along the ditch from the wood
to the clump. But this evening he set a snare in the hedge of the
clump. Just above the end of the ditch. Later he took from that snare a
plump but sacred bird. Later still he sold it to the cook of Mrs.
Blenkinsop for two and threepence.




 CHAPTER VI
AND THE LANDED PROPRIETOR


On reaching home the Terror displayed the two shillings and threepence
to Erebus with an unusual air of triumph; as a rule he showed himself
serenely unmoved alike in victory and defeat.

“That’s all right,” said Erebus cheerfully. “That makes—that makes
twenty-eight and eleven-pence. We _are_ getting on.”

“Yes; it’s twenty-eight and eleven-pence now,” said the Terror quickly.
“But you don’t seem to see that when we’ve got the stole for Mum these
pheasants will still be going on.”

“Of course they will!” cried Erebus; and her eyes shone very brightly
indeed at the joyful thought.

The next day the Terror obtained some sandwiches from Sarah after
breakfast; and as soon as his lessons were over he rode hard to the
clump above Great Deeping wood. He reached it at the hour when
gamekeepers are at their dinner, and was able to make a thorough
examination of it. He found it full of pheasant runs, and chose the two
likeliest places for his snares. He did not set them then and there; a
keeper on his afternoon round might see them. He came again in the
evening with Erebus, laid trails of raisins and set them then. Later he
sold a pheasant to the cook of Mrs. Blenkinsop and one to the cook of
Mr. Carrington.

During the next fortnight they sold eight more pheasants and eight more
kittens. They found themselves in the happy position of needing only
six shillings more to make up the price of the fur stole.

But it had been impossible for the Twins to remain content with the
clump of trees above Great Deeping wood. They had laid a trail of
raisins and set a snare in the wood itself, in the nearest corner of it
on the valley road which divides the wood into two nearly equal parts.

On the next afternoon they had ridden into Rowington with Wiggins; and
since the roads were heavy they did not go back the shortest way over
Great Deeping hill, but took the longer level road along the valley.
The afternoon was still young, and for December, uncommonly clear and
bright. But as they rode through the wood, the Terror decided that
instead of returning to it in the favoring dusk he might as well
examine the snare in the corner now, and save himself another journey.
It was a risk no experienced poacher would have taken; but old heads,
alas! do not grow on young shoulders.

He dismounted about the middle of the wood, informed the other two of
his purpose (to the surprise of Wiggins who had not been informed of
his friends’ latest exploits) and made his dispositions. When they came
to the corner of the wood, Erebus rode on up the road to keep a lookout
ahead. The Terror slipped off his bicycle, and so did Wiggins. Wiggins
held the two bicycles. The Terror listened. The wood was very still in
its winter silence. He slipped through the hedge into it, and presently
came back bringing with him a very nice young pheasant indeed. He put
it into the basket of his bicycle, and mounted.

They had barely started when a keeper sprang out of the hedge, thirty
yards ahead, and came running toward them, shouting in a very daunting
fashion as he came. There was neither time nor room to turn. They rode
on; and the keeper made for the Terror. The Terror swerved; and the
keeper swerved. Wiggins ran bang into the keeper; and they came to the
ground together as the Terror shot ahead, pedaling as hard as he could.

He caught up Erebus, and his cry of “Keeper!” set her racing beside
him; but both of them kept looking back for Wiggins; and presently,
when no Wiggins appeared, with one accord they slowed down, stopped and
dismounted.

“The keeper’s got him. This is a mess!” said the Terror, who was
panting a little from their spurt.

“If only it had been one of us!” cried Erebus. “Whatever are we to do?”

“If that beastly keeper hadn’t seen me with the pheasant, I’d get
Wiggins away, somehow,” said the Terror. “But, as it is, it’s me they
really want; and I’d get fined to a dead certainty. Come on, let’s go
back and see what’s happened to him. You scout on ahead. Nobody knows
you’re in it.”

“All right,” said Erebus; and she mounted briskly.

She rode back through the wood slowly, her keen eyes straining for a
sign of an ambush. The Terror followed her at a distance of sixty
yards, ready to jump off, turn his machine, and fly should she give the
alarm. They got no sight of Wiggins till they came, just beyond the end
of the wood, to the lodges of Great Deeping Park; then, half-way up the
drive, they saw the keeper and his prey. The keeper held Wiggins with
his left hand and wheeled the captured bicycle with his right. The
Twins dismounted. Even at that distance they could see the deep
dejection of their friend.

“There’s not really any reason for him to be frightened. He was never
in the wood at all; and he never touched the pheasant,” said the
Terror.

“What does that matter? He _will_ be frightened out of his life; he’s
so young,” cried Erebus in a tone of acute distress, gazing after their
receding friend with very anxious eyes. “He’s not like us; he won’t
cheek the keeper all the way like we should.”

“Oh, Wiggins has plenty of pluck,” said the Terror in a reassuring
tone.

“But he won’t understand he’s all right. He’s only ten. And there’s no
saying how that beastly foreigner who shoots nightingales will bully
him,” cried Erebus with unabated anxiety.

This was her womanly irrational conception of a Pomeranian Briton.

“Well, the sooner we go and fetch his father the sooner he’ll be out of
it,” said the Terror, making as if to mount his bicycle.

“No, no! That won’t do at all!” cried Erebus fiercely. “We’ve got to
rescue him now—at once. We got him into the mess; and we’ve got to get
him out of it. You’ve got to find a way.”

“It’s all very well,” said the Terror, frowning deeply; and he took off
his cap to wrestle more manfully with the problem.

Erebus faced him, frowning even more deeply.

Never had the Twins been so hopelessly at a loss.

Then the Terror said in his gloomiest tone: “I can’t see what we can
do.”

“Oh, I’m going to get him out of it somehow!” cried Erebus in a furious
desperation.

With that she mounted her bicycle and rode swiftly up the drive.

The Terror mounted, started after her, and stopped at the end of fifty
yards. It had occurred to him that, after all, he was the only poacher
of the three, the only one in real danger. As he leaned on his machine,
watching his vanishing sister, he ground his teeth. For all his natural
serenity, inaction was in the highest degree repugnant to him.

Erebus reached Great Deeping Court but a few minutes after Wiggins and
the keeper. She was about to ride on round the house, thinking that the
keeper would, as befitted his station, enter it by the back door, when
she saw Wiggins’ bicycle standing against one of the pillars of the
great porch. In a natural elation at having captured a poacher, and
eager to display his prize without delay, the keeper had gone straight
into the great hall.

Erebus dismounted and stood considering for perhaps half a minute; then
she moved Wiggins’ bicycle so that it was right to his hand if he came
out, set her own bicycle against another of the pillars, but out of
sight lest he should take it by mistake, walked up the steps, hammered
the knocker firmly, and rang the bell. The moment the door opened she
stepped quickly past the footman into the hall. The keeper sat on a
chair facing her, and on a chair beside him sat Wiggins looking white
and woebegone.

Erebus gazed at them with angry sparkling eyes, then she said sharply:
“What are you doing with my little brother?”

She adopted Wiggins with this suddenness in order to strengthen her
position.

The keeper opened his eyes in some surprise at her uncompromising tone,
but he said triumphantly:

“I caught ’im poachin’—”

“Stand up! What do you mean by speaking to me sitting down?” cried
Erebus in her most imperative tone.

The keeper stood up with uncommon quickness and a sudden sheepish air:
“’E was poachin’,” he said sulkily.

“He was not! A little boy like that!” cried Erebus scornfully.

“Anyways, ’e was aidin’ an’ abettin’, an’ I’ve brought ’im to Mr.
D’Arcy Rosynimer an’ it’s for ’im to say,” said the keeper stubbornly.

There came a faint click from the beautiful lips of Erebus, the gentle
click by which the Twins called each other to attention. At the sound
Wiggins, his face faintly flushed with hope, braced himself. Erebus
measured the distance with the eye of an expert, just as there came
into the farther end of the hall that large, flabby, pudding-faced
young Pomeranian Briton, Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer.

“Where’s the boacher?” he roared in an eager, angry voice, reverting in
his emotion to the ancestral “b.”

As the keeper turned to him Erebus sprang to the door and threw it
wide.

“Bolt, Wiggins!” she cried.

Wiggins bolted for the door; the keeper grabbed at him and missed; the
footman grabbed, and grabbed the interposing Erebus. She slammed the
door behind the vanished Wiggins.

Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer dashed heavily down the hall with a thick howl.
Erebus set her back against the door. He caught her by the left arm to
sling her out of the way. It was a silly arm to choose, for she caught
him a slap on his truly Pomeranian expanse of cheek with the full swing
of her right, a slap that rang through the great hall like the crack of
a whip-lash. Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer was large but tender. He howled
again, and thumped at Erebus with big flabby fists. She caught the
first blow on an uncommonly acute elbow. The second never fell, for the
footman caught him by the collar and swung him round.

“It’s not for the likes of you to ’it Henglish young ladies!” he cried
with patriotic indignation.

Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer gasped and gurgled; then he howled furiously,
“Ged out of my house! Now—at once—ged out!”

“And pleased I shall be to go—when I’ve bin paid my wages. It’s a month
to-morrow since I gave notice, anyhow. I’ve had enough of furriners,”
said the footman with cold exultation.

“Go—go—ged oud!” roared Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer.

“When I’ve bin paid my wages,” said the footman coldly.

Erebus waited to hear no more. She turned the latch, slipped through
the door, and slammed it behind her. To her dismay she saw a big
motorcar coming round the corner of the house. She mounted quickly and
raced down the drive. Wiggins was already out of sight.

Just outside the lodge gates she found the Terror waiting for her.

“I’ve sent Wiggins on!” he shouted as she passed.

“Come on! Come on!” she shrieked back. “The beastly foreigner’s got a
motor-car!”

He caught her up in a quarter of a mile; and she told him that the car
had been ready to start. They caught up Wiggins a mile and a half down
the road; and all three of them sat down to ride all they knew. They
were fully eight miles from home, and the car could go three miles to
their one on that good road. The Twins alone would have made a longer
race of it; but the pace was set by the weaker Wiggins. They had gone
little more than three miles when they heard the honk of the car as it
came rapidly round a corner perhaps half a mile behind them.

“Go on, Terror!” cried Erebus. “You’re the one that matters! You did
the poaching! I’ll look after Wiggins! He’ll be all right with me.”

For perhaps fifty yards the Terror hesitated; then the wisdom of the
advice sank in, and he shot ahead. Erebus kept behind Wiggins; and they
rode on. The car was overhauling them rapidly, but not so rapidly as it
would have done had not Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer, who lacked the courage
of his famous grenadier ancestors, been in it. He was howling at his
straining chauffeur to go slower.

Nevertheless at the end of a mile and a half the car was less than
fifty yards behind them; and then a figure came into sight swinging
briskly along.

“It’s your father!” gasped Erebus.

It was, indeed, the higher mathematician.

As they reached him, they flung themselves off their bicycles; and
Erebus cried: “Wiggins hasn’t been poaching at all! It was the Terror!”

“Was it, indeed?” said Mr. Carrington calmly.

On his words the car was on them; and as it came to a dead stop Mr.
D’Arcy Rosenheimer tumbled clumsily out of it.

“I’ve got you, you liddle devil!” he bellowed triumphantly, but quite
incorrectly; and he rushed at Wiggins who stepped discreetly behind his
father.

“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Carrington.

The excited young Pomeranian Briton, taking in his age and size at a
single glance, shoved him aside with splendid violence. Mr. Carrington
seemed to step lightly backward and forward in one movement; his left
arm shot out; and there befell Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer what, in the
technical terms affected by the fancy, is described as “an uppercut on
the point which put him to sleep.” He fell as falls a sack of potatoes,
and lay like a log.

The keeper had just disengaged himself from the car and hurried
forward.

“Do you want some too, my good man?” said Mr. Carrington in his most
agreeable tone, keeping his guard rather low.

The keeper stopped short and looked down, with a satisfaction he made
no effort to hide, at the body of his stricken employer which lay
between them.

“I can’t say as I do, sir,” he said civilly; and he backed away.

“Then perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me the name of this hulking
young blackguard who assaults quiet elderly gentlemen, taking
constitutionals, in this most unprovoked and wanton fashion,” said the
higher mathematician in the same agreeable tone.

“Assaults?—’Im assault?—Yes, sir; it’s Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer, of Great
Deeping Court, sir,” said the keeper respectfully.

“Then tell Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer, when he recovers the few wits he
looks to have, with my compliments, that he will some time this evening
be summoned for assault. Good afternoon,” said Mr. Carrington, and he
turned on his heel.

The keeper and the chauffeur stooped over the body of their young
employer. Mr. Carrington did not so much as turn his head. He put his
walking-stick under his arm, and rubbed the knuckles of his left hand
with rueful tenderness. None the less he looked pleased; it was
gratifying to a slight man of his sedentary habit to have knocked down
such a large, round Pomeranian Briton with such exquisite neatness.
Wheeling their bicycles, Erebus and Wiggins walked beside him with a
proud air. They felt that they shone with his reflected glory. It was a
delightful sensation.

They had gone some forty yards, when Erebus said in a hushed, awed, yet
gratified tone: “Have you killed him, Mr. Carrington?”

“No, my child. I am not a pork-butcher,” said Mr. Carrington amiably.

“He _looked_ as if he was dead,” said Erebus; and there was a faint
ring of disappointment in her tone.

“In a short time the young man will come to himself; and let us hope
that it will be a better and wiser self,” said Mr. Carrington. “But
what was it all about? What did that truculent young ruffian want with
Rupert?”

Erebus paused, looking earnestly round to the horizon for inspiration;
then she dashed at the awkward subject with commendable glibness: “It
was a pheasant in Great Deeping wood,” she said. “The Terror found it,
I suppose. I had gone on, and I didn’t see that part. But it was
Wiggins the keeper caught. Of course—”

“I beg your pardon; but I should like that point a little clearer,”
broke in Mr. Carrington. “Had you ridden on too, Rupert? Or did you see
what happened?”

“Oh, yes; I was there,” said Wiggins readily. “And the Terror found the
pheasant in the wood and put it in his bicycle basket. And we had just
got on our bicycles when the keeper came out of the wood, and I ran
into him; and he collared me and took me up to the Court. I wasn’t
really frightened—at least, not much.”

“The keeper had no right to touch him,” Erebus broke in glibly.
“Wiggins never touched the pheasant; he didn’t even go into the wood;
and when I went into the hall, the hall of the Court, I found him and
the keeper sitting there, and I let Wiggins out, of course, and then
that horrid Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer who shoots nightingales, caught hold
of me by the arm ever so roughly, and I slapped him just once. I should
think that the mark is still there “—her speed of speech slackened to a
slower vengeful gratification and then quickened again—“and he began to
thump me and the footman interfered, and I came away, and they came
after us in the car, and you saw what happened—at least you did it.”

She stopped somewhat breathless.

“Lucidity itself,” said Mr. Carrington. “But let us have the matter of
the pheasant clear. Was the Terror exploring the wood on the chance of
finding a pheasant, or had he reason to expect that a pheasant would be
there ready to be brought home?”

Erebus blushed faintly, looked round the horizon somewhat aimlessly,
and said, “Well, there was a snare, you know.”

Mr. Carrington chuckled and said: “I thought so. I thought we should
come to that snare in time. Did you know there was a snare, Rupert?”

“Oh, no, he didn’t know anything about it!” Erebus broke in quickly.
“We should never have thought of letting him into anything so
dangerous! He’s so young!”

“I shall be eleven in a fortnight!” said Wiggins with some heat.

“You see, we wanted a fur stole at Barker’s in Rowington for a
Christmas present for mother; and pheasants were the only way we could
think of getting it,” said Erebus in a confidential tone.

“Light! Light at last!” cried Mr. Carrington; and he laughed gently.
“Well, every one has been assaulted except the poacher; exquisitely
Pomeranian! But it’s just as well that they have, or that ingenious
brother of yours would be in a fine mess. As it is, I think we can go
on teaching our young Pomeranian not to be so high-spirited.” He
chuckled again.

He walked on briskly; and on the way to Little Deeping, he drew from
Erebus the full story of their poaching. When they reached the village
he did not go to his own house, but stopped at the garden gate of Mr.
Tupping, the lawyer who had sold his practise at Rowington and had
retired to Little Deeping. At his gate Mr. Carrington bade Erebus good
afternoon and told her to tell the Terror not to thrust himself on the
notice of any of Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer’s keepers who might be sent out
to hunt for the real culprit. He would better keep quiet.

Erebus mounted her bicycle and rode quickly home. She found the Terror
in the cats’ home, awaiting her impatiently.

“Well, did Wiggins get away all right?” he cried. “I passed Mr.
Carrington; and I thought he’d see that they didn’t carry him off
again.”

Erebus told him in terms of the warmest admiration how firmly Mr.
Carrington had dealt with the Pomeranian foe.

“By Jove! That was ripping! I do wish I’d been there!” said the Terror.
“He only hit him once, you say?”

“Only once. And he told me to tell you to lie low in case Mr.
Rosenheimer’s keepers are out hunting for you,” said Erebus.

“I am lying low,” said the Terror. “And I’ve got rid of that pheasant.
I sold it to Mr. Carrington’s cook as I came through the village. I
thought it was better out of the way.”

“Then that’s all right. We only want about another half-crown,” said
Erebus.

Mr. Carrington found Mr. Tupping at home; and he could not have gone to
a better man, for though the lawyer had given up active practise, he
still retained the work of a few old clients in whom he took a friendly
interest; and among them was Mrs. Dangerfield.

He was eager to prevent the Terror from being prosecuted for poaching
not only because the scandal would annoy her deeply but also because
she could so ill afford the expense of the case. He readily fell in
with the view of Mr. Carrington that they had better take the
offensive, and that the violent behavior of Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer had
given them the weapons.

The result of their council was that not later than seven o’clock that
evening Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer was served by the constable of Little
Deeping with a summons for an assault on Violet Anastasia Dangerfield,
and with another summons for an assault on Bertram Carrington, F. R.
S.; and in the course of the next twenty minutes his keeper was served
with a summons for an assault on Rupert Carrington.

Though on recovering consciousness he had sent the keeper to scour the
neighborhood for Wiggins and the Terror, Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer was in
a chastened shaken mood, owing to the fact that he had been “put to
sleep by an uppercut on the point.” He made haste to despatch a car
into Rowington to bring the lawyer who managed his local business.

The lawyer knew his client’s unpopularity in the county, and advised
him earnestly to try to hush these matters up. He declared that however
Pomeranian one might be by extraction and in spirit, no bench of
English magistrates would take a favorable view of an assault by a big
young man on a middle-aged higher mathematician of European reputation,
or on Miss Violet Anastasia Dangerfield, aged thirteen, gallantly
rescuing that higher mathematician’s little boy from wrongful arrest
and detention.

Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer held his aching head with both hands, protested
that they had done all the effective assaulting, and protested his
devotion to the sacred bird beloved of the English magistracy. But he
perceived clearly enough that he had let that devotion carry him too
far, and that a Bench which never profited by it, so far as to shoot
the particular sacred birds on which it was lavished, would not be
deeply touched by it. Therefore he instructed the lawyer to use every
effort to settle the matter out of court.

The lawyer dined with him lavishly, and then had, himself driven over
to Little Deeping in the car, to Mr. Carrington’s house. He found Mr.
Carrington uncommonly bitter against his client; and he did his best to
placate him by urging that the assault had been met with a promptitude
which had robbed it of its violence, and that he could well afford to
be generous to a man whom he had so neatly put to sleep with an
uppercut on the point.

Mr. Carrington held out for a while; but in the background, behind the
more prominent figures in the affair, lurked the Terror with a
veritable poached pheasant; and at last he made terms. The summonses
should be withdrawn on condition that nothing more was heard about that
poached pheasant and that Mr. D’Arcy Rosenheimer contributed fifty
guineas to the funds of the Deeping Cottage Hospital. The lawyer
accepted the terms readily; and his client made no objection to
complying with them.

The matter was at an end by noon of the next day; and Mr. Carrington
sent for the Terror and talked to him very seriously about this
poaching. He did not profess to consider it an enormity; he dwelt at
length on the extreme annoyance his mother would feel if he were caught
and prosecuted. In the end he gave him the choice of giving his word to
snare no more pheasants, or of having his mother informed that he was
poaching. The Terror gave his word to snare no more pheasants the more
readily since if Mrs. Dangerfield were informed of his poaching, she
would forbid him to set another snare for anything. Besides, he had
been somewhat shaken by his narrow escape the day before. Only he
pointed out that he could not be quite sure of never snaring a
pheasant, for pheasants went everywhere. Mr. Carrington admitted this
fact and said that it would be enough if he refrained from setting his
snares on ground sacred to the sacred bird. If pheasants wandered into
them on unpreserved ground, it was their own fault. Thanks therefore to
the firmness of her friends Mrs. Dangerfield never learned of the
Terror’s narrow escape.

The Twins bore the loss of income from the sacred bird with even minds,
since the sum needed for the fur stole was so nearly complete. They
turned their attention to the habits of the hare, and snared one in the
hedge of the farthest meadow of farmer Stubbs. Mrs. Blenkinsop’s cook
paid them half-a-crown for it; and the three guineas were complete.

Though it wanted a full week to Christmas, the Terror lost no time
making the purchase. As he told Erebus, they would get the choice of
more stoles if they bought it before the Christmas rush. Accordingly on
the afternoon after the sale of the hare they rode into Rowington to
buy it.

It was an uncommonly cold afternoon, for a bitter east wind was blowing
hard; and when they dismounted at the door of Barker’s shop, Erebus
gazed wistfully across the road at the appetizing window of Springer,
the confectioner, and said sadly:

“It’s a pity it isn’t Saturday and we had our ‘overseering’ salary. We
might have gone to Springer’s and had a jolly good blow-out for once.”

The Terror gazed at Springer’s window thoughtfully, and said: “Yes, it
is a pity. We ought to have remembered it was Christmas-time and paid
ourselves in advance.”

He followed Erebus into the shop with a thoughtful air, and seemed
somewhat absent-minded during her examination of the stoles. She was
very thorough in it; and both of them were nearly sure that she had
chosen the very best of them. The girl who was serving them made out
the bill; and the Terror drew the little bag which held the three
guineas (since it was all in silver they had been able to find no purse
of a capacity to hold it), emptied its contents on the counter, and
counted them slowly.

He had nearly finished, and the girl had nearly wrapped up the stole
when a flash of inspiration brightened his face; and he said firmly: “I
shall want five per cent. discount for cash.”

“Oh, we don’t do that sort of thing here,” said the girl quickly. “This
is such an old-established establishment.”

“I can’t help that. I must have discount for cash,” said the Terror yet
more firmly.

The girl hesitated; then she called Mr. Barker who, acting as his own
shop-walker, was strolling up and down with great dignity. Mr. Barker
came and she put the matter to him.

“Oh, no, sir; I’m afraid we couldn’t think of it. Barker’s is too old
established a house to connive at these sharp modern ways of doing
business,” said Mr. Barker with a very impressive air.

The Terror looked at him with a cold thoughtful eye: “All right,” he
said. “You can put the stole down to me—Master Hyacinth Dangerfield,
Colet House, Little Deeping.”

He began to shovel the money back into the bag.

An expression of deep pain spread over the mobile face of Mr. Barker as
the coins began to disappear; and he said quickly: “I’m afraid we can’t
do that, sir. Our terms are cash—strictly cash.”

“Oh, no, they’re not. My mother has had an account here for the last
six years,” said the Terror icily; and the last of the coins went into
the bag.

Mr. Barker held out a quivering hand, and with an air and in a tone of
warm geniality he cried: “Oh, that alters the case altogether! In the
case of the son of an old customer like Mrs. Dangerfield we’re
delighted to deduct five per cent. discount for cash—delighted. Make
out the bill for three pounds, Miss Perkins.”

Miss Perkins made out the bill for three pounds; and Erebus bore away
the stole tenderly.

As the triumphant Terror came out of the shop, he jingled the brave
three shillings discount in his pocket and said: “Now for Springer’s!”




 CHAPTER VII
AND PRINGLE’S POND


Mrs. Dangerfield was indeed delighted with the stole, for she had an
almost extravagant fondness for furs; and it was long since she had had
any. She wondered how the Twins had saved and collected the money it
had cost; she knew that it had not been drawn from the cats’ home fund,
since the Terror had promised her that none of that money should be
diverted from its proper purpose; and she was the more grateful to them
for the thought and labor they must have devoted to acquiring it. On
the whole she thought it wiser not to inquire how the money had been
raised.

The Twins, as always, enjoyed an exceedingly pleasant Christmas. It was
the one week in the year when Little Deeping flung off its quietude and
gently rollicked. There was a dearth of children, young men and maidens
among their Little Deeping friends; and the Twins and Wiggins were in
request as the lighter element in the Christmas gatherings. Thanks to
the Terror, the three of them took this brightening function with
considerable seriousness: each of them learned by heart a humorous
piece of literature, generally verse, for reciting; and they performed
two charades in a very painstaking fashion. They had but little
dramatic talent; but they derived a certain grave satisfaction from the
discharge of this enlivening social duty; and their efforts were always
well received.

It was, as usual, a green and muggy Christmas. The weather broke about
the middle of January; and there came hard frosts and a heavy
snow-storm. The Twins made a glorious forty-foot slide on the common in
front of Colet House; and they constructed also an excellent toboggan
on which they rushed down the hill into the village street. These were
but light pleasures. They watched the ponds with the most careful
interest; eager, should they bear, not to miss an hour’s skating.
Wiggins shared their pleasures and their interest; and Mr. Carrington,
meeting the Terror on his way to his lessons at the vicarage, drew from
him a promise that he would not let his ardent son take any risk
whatever.

The ice thickened slowly on the ponds; then came another hard frost;
and the Twins made up their minds that it must surely bear. They ate
their breakfast in a great excitement; and as the Terror gathered
together his books for his morning’s work they made their plans.

He had strapped his books together; and as he caught up one of the two
pairs of brightly polished skates that lay on the table, he said: “Then
that’s settled. I’ll meet you at Pringle’s pond as soon after half past
twelve as I can get there; but you’d better not go on it before I
come.”

“Oh, it’ll bear all right; it nearly bore yesterday,” said Erebus
impatiently.

“Well, Wiggins isn’t to go on it before I come. You’ll do as you like
of course—as usual—and if you fall in, it’ll be your own lookout. But
he’s to wait till I come. If the ice does bear, it won’t bear any too
well; and I’m responsible for Wiggins. I promised Mr. Carrington to
look after him,” said the Terror in tones of stern gravity.

Erebus tossed her head and said in a somewhat rebellious tone: “As if I
couldn’t take care of him just as well as you. I’m as old as you.”

“Perhaps,” said the Terror doubtfully. “But you are a girl; there’s no
getting over it; and it does make a difference.”

Erebus turned and scowled at him as he moved toward the door; and she
scowled at the door after he had gone through it and shut it firmly
behind him. She hated to be reminded that she was a girl. The reminder
rankled at intervals during her lessons; and twice Mrs. Dangerfield
asked her what was distressing her that she scowled so fiercely.

At noon her lessons came to an end; and in less than three minutes she
was ready to go skating. She set out briskly across the common, and
found Wiggins waiting for her at his father’s garden-gate. He joined
her in a fine enthusiasm for the ice and talked of the certainty of its
bearing with the most hopeful confidence. She displayed an equal
confidence; and they took their brisk way across the white meadows.
More than usual Wiggins spurned the earth and advanced by leaps and
bounds. His blue eyes were shining very brightly in the cold winter
sunlight.

In ten minutes they came to Pringle’s pond. The wind had swept the ice
fairly clear of snow; and it looked smooth and very tempting. Also it
looked quite thick and strong. Erebus stepped on to it gingerly, found
that it bore her, and tested it with some care. She even jumped up and
down on it. It cracked, but it did not break; and she told herself that
ice always cracks, more or less. She set about putting on her skates;
and the joyful Wiggins, all fear of disappointment allayed, followed
her example.

When presently he stood upright in them ready to take the ice, she
looked at him doubtfully, then tossed her head impatiently. No; she
would not tell him that the Terror had charged her not to let him skate
till he came.… She could look after him quite as well as the Terror.…
She had tested the ice thoroughly.… It was perfectly safe.

Wiggins slid down the bank on to the ice; and she followed him. The ice
cracked somewhat noisily at their weight, and at intervals it cracked
again. Erebus paid no heed to its cracking beyond telling Wiggins not
to go far from the edge. She skated round and across the pond several
times, then settled down to make a figure of eight, resolved to have it
scored deeply in the ice before the Terror came. Wiggins skated about
the pond.

She had been at work some time and had got so far with her figure of
eight that it was already distinctly marked, when there was a crash and
a shrill cry from Wiggins. She turned sharply to see the water welling
up out of a dark triangular hole on the other side of the pond, where a
row of pollard willows had screened the ice from the full keenness of
the wind.

Wiggins was in that hole under the water.

She screamed and dashed toward it. She had nearly reached it when his
head came up above the surface; and he clutched at the ice. Two more
steps and a loud crack gave her pause. It flashed on her that if she
went near it, she would merely widen the hole and be helpless in the
water herself.

“Hold on! Hold on!” she cried as she stopped ten yards from the hole;
and then she sent a shrill piercing scream from all her lungs ringing
through the still winter air.

She screamed again and yet again. Wiggins’ face rose above the edge of
the ice; and he gasped and spluttered. Then she sank down gently, at
full length, face downward on the ice, and squirmed slowly, spread out
so as to distribute her weight over as wide a surface as possible,
toward the hole. Half a minute’s cautious squirming brought her hands
to the edge of it; and with a sob of relief she grasped his wrists. The
ice bent under her weight, but it did not break. The icy water, welling
out over it, began to drench her arms and chest.

Very gently she tried to draw Wiggins out over the ice; but she could
not. She could get no grip on it with her toes to drag from.

Wiggins’ little face, two feet from her own, was very white; and his
teeth chattered.

She set her teeth and strove to find a hold for her slipping toes. She
could not.

“C-c-can’t you p-p-pull m-m-me out?” chattered Wiggins.

“No, not yet,” she said hoarsely. “But it’s all right. The Terror will
be here in a minute.”

She raised her head as high as she could and screamed again.

She listened with all her ears for an answer. A bird squeaked shrilly
on the other side of the field; there was no other sound. Wiggins’
white face was now bluish round the mouth; and his eyes were full of
fear. Again she kicked about for a grip, in vain.

“It’s d-d-dreadfully c-c-cold,” said Wiggins in a very faint voice; he
began to sob; and his eyes looked very dully into hers.

She knew that it was dreadfully cold; her drenched arms and chest were
dreadfully cold; and he was in that icy water to his shoulders.

“Try to stick it out! Don’t give in! It’s only a minute or two longer!
The Terror _must_ come!” she cried fiercely.

His eyes gazed at her piteously; and she began to sob without feeling
ashamed of it. Then his eyes filled with that dreadful look of hopeless
bewildered distress of a very sick child; and they rolled in their
sockets scanning the cold sky in desperate appeal.

They terrified Erebus beyond words. She screamed, and then she screamed
and screamed. Wiggins’ face was a mere white blur through her blinding
tears of terror.

She knew nothing till her ankles were firmly gripped; and the Terror
cried loudly: “Stop that row!”

She felt him tug at her ankles but not nearly strongly enough to stir
her and Wiggins. He, too, could get no hold on the ice with his toes.

Then he cried: “Squirm round to the left. I’ll help you.”

He made his meaning clearer by tugging her ankles toward the left; and
she squirmed in that direction as fast as she dared over the bending
ice.

In less than half a minute the Terror got his feet among the roots of a
willow, gripped them with his toes, and with a strong and steady pull
began to draw them toward the bank. The ice creaked as Wiggins’ chest
came over the edge of the hole; but it did not break; and his body once
flat on the ice, the Terror hauled them to the side of the pond easily.
He dragged Erebus, still by the ankles, half up the bank to get most of
her weight off the ice. Then he stepped down on to it and picked up
Wiggins. Erebus’ stiff fingers still grasped his wrists; and they did
not open easily to let them go.

The Terror took one look at the deathly faintly-breathing Wiggins; then
he pulled off his woolen gloves, drew his knife from his pocket, opened
the blade with his teeth for quickness’ sake, tossed it to Erebus and
cried: “Cut off his skates! Pull off his boots and stockings!”

Then with swift deft fingers he stripped off Wiggins’ coat, jersey and
waistcoat, pulled on his gloves, caught up a handful of snow and began
to rub his chest violently. In the spring the Twins had attended a
course of the St. John’s Ambulance Society lectures, and among other
things had learned how to treat those dying from exposure. The Terror
was the quicker dealing with Wiggins since he had so often been the
subject on which he and Erebus had practised many kinds of first-aid.

He rubbed hard till the skin reddened with the blood flowing back into
it. Erebus with feeble fumbling fingers (she was almost spent with cold
and terror) cut the straps of his skates and the laces of his boots,
pulled them off, pulled off his stockings, and rubbed feebly at his
legs. The Terror turned Wiggins over and rubbed his back violently till
the blood reddened that. Wiggins uttered a little gasping grunt.

Forthwith the Terror pulled off his own coat and jersey and put them on
Wiggins; then he pulled off Wiggins’ knickerbockers and rubbed his
thighs till they reddened; then he pulled off his stockings and pulled
them on Wiggins’ legs. The stockings came well up his thighs; and the
Terror’s coat and jersey came well down them. Wiggins was completely
covered. But the Terror was not satisfied; he called on Erebus for her
stockings and pulled them on Wiggins over his own; then he took her
jacket and tied it round Wiggins’ waist by the sleeves.

Wiggins was much less blue; and the whiteness of his cheeks was no
longer a dead waxen color. He opened his eyes twice and shut them
feebly.

The Terror shook him, and shouted: “Come on, old chap! Make an effort!
We want to get you home!”

With that he raised him on to his feet, put his own cap well over
Wiggins’ cold wet head, slipped an arm round him under his shoulder,
bade Erebus support him in like manner on the other side; and they set
off toward the village half carrying, half dragging him along. They
went slowly for Wiggins’ feet dragged feebly and almost helplessly
along. Their arms round him helped warm him. It would have taken them a
long time to haul him all the way to his home; but fortunately soon
after they came out of Pringle’s meadows on to the road, Jakes, the
Great Deeping butcher, who supplies also Little Deeping and Muttle
Deeping with meat, came clattering along in his cart. Wiggins was
quickly hauled into it; and the three of them were at Mr. Carrington’s
in about four minutes.

As they hauled Wiggins along the garden path, the Terror, said to
Erebus: “You bolt home as hard as you can go. You must be awfully wet
and cold; and if you don’t want to be laid up, the sooner you take some
quinine and get to bed the better.”

As soon therefore as she had helped Wiggins over the threshold she ran
home as quickly as her legs, still stiff and cold, would carry her.

The arrival of the barelegged Terror in his waistcoat, bearing Wiggins
as a half-animate bundle, set Mr. Carrington’s house in an uproar. The
Terror, as the expert in first-aid, took command of the cook and
housemaid and Mr. Carrington himself. Wiggins was carried into the hot
kitchen and rolled in a blanket with a hot water bottle at his feet.
The cook was for two blankets and two hot water bottles; but the expert
Terror insisted with a firmness there was no bending that heat must be
restored slowly. As Wiggins warmed he gave him warm brandy and water
with a teaspoon. In ten minutes Wiggins was quite animate, able to talk
faintly, trying not to cry with the pain of returning circulation.

The Terror sent the cook and housemaid to get the sheets off his bed
and warm the blankets. In another five minute’s Mr. Carrington carried
Wiggins up to it, and gave him a dose of ammoniated quinine. Presently
he fell asleep.

The Terror had taken his coat off Wiggins; but he was still without
stockings and a jersey. He borrowed stockings and a sweater from Mr.
Carrington, and now that the business of seeing after Wiggins was over,
he told him how he had come to the pond to find Wiggins in the water
and Erebus spread out on the ice, holding him back from sinking. He was
careful not to tell him that he had forbidden Erebus to let Wiggins go
on the ice; and when Mr. Carrington began to thank him for saving him,
he insisted on giving all the credit to Erebus.

Mr. Carrington made him also take a dose of ammoniated quinine, and
then further fortified him with cake and very agreeable port wine. On
his way home the Terror went briskly round by Pringle’s pond and picked
up the skates and garments that had been left there. When he reached
home he found that Erebus was in bed. She seemed little the worse for
lying with her arms and chest in that icy water, keeping Wiggins
afloat; and when she learned that Wiggins also seemed none the worse
and was sleeping peacefully, she ate her lunch with a fair appetite.

The Terror did not point out that all the trouble had sprung from her
disregard for his instructions; he only said: “I just told Mr.
Carrington that Wiggins was already in the water when I got to the
pond.”

“That was awfully decent of you,” said Erebus after a pause in which
she had gathered the full bearing of his reticence.




 CHAPTER VIII
AND THE MUTTLE DEEPING PEACHES


The dreadful fright she had suffered did not throw a cloud over the
spirit of Erebus for as long as might have been expected. She was as
quick as any one to realize that all’s well that ends well; and Wiggins
escaped lightly, with a couple of days in bed. The adventure, however,
induced a change in her attitude to him; she was far less condescending
with him than she had been; indeed she seemed to have acquired
something of a proprietary interest in him and was uncommonly
solicitous for his welfare. To such a point did this solicitude go that
more than once he remonstrated bitterly with her for fussing about him.

During the rest of the winter, the spring and the early summer, their
lives followed an even tenor: they did their lessons; they played their
games; then tended the inmates of the cats’ home, selling them as they
grew big, and replacing the sold with threepenny kittens just able to
lap.

In the spring they fished the free water of the Whittle, the little
trout-stream that runs through the estate of the Morgans of Muttle
Deeping Grange. The free water runs for rather more than half a mile on
the Little Deeping side of Muttle Deeping; and the Twins fished it with
an assiduity and a skill which set the villagers grumbling that they
left no fish for any one else. Also the Twins tried to get leave to
fish Sir James Morgan’s preserved water, higher up the stream. But Mr.
Hilton, the agent of the estate, was very firm in his refusal to give
them leave: for no reason that the Twins could see, since Sir James was
absent, shooting big game in Africa. They resented the refusal
bitterly; it seemed to them a wanton waste of the stream. It was some
consolation to them to make a well-judged raid one early morning on the
strawberry-beds in one of the walled gardens of Muttle Deeping Grange.

About the middle of June the Terror went to London on a visit to their
Aunt Amelia. Sir Maurice Falconer and Miss Hendersyde saw to it that it
was not the unbroken series of visits to cats’ homes Lady Ryehampton
had arranged for him; and he enjoyed it very much. On his return he was
able to assure the interested Erebus that their aunt’s parrot still
said “dam” with a perfectly accurate, but monotonous iteration.

Soon after his return the news was spread abroad that Sir James Morgan
had let Muttle Deeping Grange. In the life of the Deeping villages the
mere letting of Muttle Deeping Grange was no unimportant event, but the
inhabitants of Great Deeping, Muttle Deeping (possibly a corruption of
Middle Deeping), and Little Deeping were stirred to the very depths of
their being when the news came that it had been let to a German
princess. The women, at any rate, awaited her coming with the liveliest
interest and curiosity, emotions dashed some way from their fine height
when they learned that Princess Elizabeth, of Cassel-Nassau, was only
twelve years and seven months old.

The Twins did not share the excited curiosity of their neighbors.
Resenting deeply the fact that the tenant of Muttle Deeping was a
_German_ princess, they assumed an attitude of cold aloofness in the
matter, and refused to be interested or impressed. Erebus was more
resentful than the Terror; and it is to be suspected that the high
patriotic spirit she displayed in the matter was in some degree owing
to the fact that Mrs. Blenkinsop, who came one afternoon to tea,
gushing information about the grandfathers, grandmothers, parents,
uncles, cousins and aunts of the princess, ended by saying, with
meaning, “And what a model she will be to the little girls of the
neighborhood!”

Erebus told the Terror that things were indeed come to a pretty pass
when it was suggested to an English girl, a Dangerfield, too, that she
should model herself on a German.

“I don’t suppose it would really make any difference who you modeled
yourself on,” said the Terror, desirous rather of being frank than
grammatical.

When presently the princess came to the Grange, the lively curiosity of
her neighbors was gratified by but imperfect visions of her. She did
not, as they had expected, attend any of the three churches, for she
had brought with her her own Lutheran pastor. They only saw her on her
afternoon drives, a stiff little figure, thickly veiled against the
sun, sitting bolt upright in the victoria beside the crimson baroness
(crimson in face; she wore black) in whose charge she had come to
England.

They learned presently that the princess had come to Muttle Deeping for
her health; that she was delicate and her doctors feared lest she
should develop consumption; they hoped that a few weeks in the
excellent Deeping air would strengthen her. The news abated a little
the cold hostility of Erebus; but the Twins paid but little attention
to their young neighbor.

Their mother was finding the summer trying; she was sleeping badly, and
her appetite was poor. Doctor Arbuthnot put her on a light diet; and in
particular he ordered her to eat plenty of fruit. It was not the best
season for fruit: strawberries were over and raspberries were coming to
an end. Mrs. Dangerfield made shift to do with bananas. The Twins were
annoyed that this was the best that could be done to carry out the
doctor’s orders; but there seemed no help for it.

It was in the afternoon, a sweltering afternoon, after the doctor’s
visit that, as the Twins, bent on an aimless ride, were lazily wheeling
their bicycles out of the cats’ home, a sudden gleam came into the eyes
of the Terror; and he said:

“I’ve got an idea!”

An answering light gleamed in the eyes of Erebus; and she cried
joyfully; “Thank goodness! I was beginning to get afraid that nothing
was ever going to occur to us again. I thought it was the hot weather.
What is it?”

“Those Germans,” said the Terror darkly. “Now that they’ve got the
Grange, why shouldn’t we make a raid on the peach-garden. They say the
Grange peaches are better than any hothouse ones; and Watkins told me
they ripen uncommon early. They’re probably ripe now.”

“That’s a splendid idea! It will just teach those Germans!” cried
Erebus; and her piquant face was bright with the sterling spirit of the
patriot. Then after a pause she added reluctantly: “But if the princess
is an invalid, perhaps she ought to have all the peaches herself.”

“She couldn’t want all of them. Why we couldn’t. There are hundreds,”
said the Terror quickly. “And they’re the very thing for Mum. Bananas
are all very well in their way; but they’re not like real fruit.”

“Of course; Mum _must_ have them,” said Erebus with decision. “But how
are we going to get into the peach-garden? The door in the wall only
opens on the inside.”

“We’re not. I’ve worked it out. Now you just hurry up and get some big
leaves to put the peaches in. Mum will like them ever so much better
with the bloom on, though it doesn’t really make any difference to the
taste.”

Erebus ran into the kitchen-garden and gathered big soft leaves of
different kinds. When she came back she found the Terror tying the
landing-net they had borrowed from the vicar for their trout-fishing,
to the backbone of his bicycle. She put the leaves into her bicycle
basket, and they rode briskly to Muttle Deeping.

The Twins knew all the approaches to Muttle Deeping Grange well since
they had spent several days in careful scouting before they had made
their raid earlier in the summer on its strawberry beds. A screen of
trees runs down from the home wood along the walls of the gardens; and
the Twins, after coming from the road in the shelter of the home wood,
came down the wall behind that screen of trees.

About the middle of the peach-garden the Terror climbed on to a low
bough, raised his head with slow caution above the wall, and surveyed
the garden. It was empty and silent, save for a curious snoring sound
that disquieted him little, since he ascribed it to some distant pig.

He stepped on to a higher branch, leaned over the wall, and surveyed
the golden burden of the tree beneath him. The ready Erebus handed the
landing-net up to him. He chose his peach, the ripest he could see;
slipped the net under it, flicked it, lifted the peach in it over the
wall, and lowered it down to Erebus, who made haste to roll it in a
leaf and lay it gently in her bicycle basket. The Terror netted another
and another and another.

The garden was not as empty as he believed. On a garden chair in the
little lawn in the middle of it sat the Princess Elizabeth hidden from
him by the thick wall of a pear tree, and in a chair beside her, sat,
or rather sprawled, her guardian, the Baroness Frederica Von
Aschersleben, who was following faithfully the doctor’s instructions
that her little charge should spend her time in the open air, but was
doing her best to bring it about that the practise should do her as
little good as possible by choosing the sultriest and most airless spot
on the estate because it was so admirably adapted to her own
comfortable sleeping.

The baroness added nothing to the old-world charm of the garden. Her
eyes were shut, her mouth was open, her face was most painfully
crimson, and from her short, but extremely tip-tilted nose, came the
sound of snoring which the Terror had ascribed to some distant pig.

The princess was warmly—very warmly—dressed for the sweltering
afternoon and sweltering spot; little beads of sweat stood on her brow;
the story-book she had been trying to read lay face downward in her
lap; and she was looking round the simmering garden with a look of
intolerable discomfort and boredom on her pretty pale face.

Then a moving object came into the range of her vision, just beyond the
end-of the wall of pear tree—a moving object against the garden wall.
She could not see clearly what it was; but it seemed to her that a
peach rose and vanished over the top of the wall. She stared at the
part of the wall whence it had risen; and in a few seconds another
peach seemed to rise and disappear.

This curious behavior of English peaches so roused her curiosity that,
in spite of the heat, she rose and walked quietly to the end of the
wall of pear-tree. As she came beyond it, she saw, leaning over the
wall, a fair-haired boy. Even as she saw him something rose and
vanished over the wall far too swiftly for her to see that it was a
landing-net.

Surprise did not rob the Terror of his politeness; he smiled amicably,
raised his cap and said in his most agreeable tone: “How do you do?”

He did not know how much the princess had seen, and he was not going to
make admission of guilt by a hasty and perhaps needless flight, provoke
pursuit and risk his peaches.

“How do you do?” said the princess a little haughtily, hesitating.
“What are you doing up there?”

“I’m looking at the garden,” said the Terror truthfully, but not quite
accurately; for he was looking much more at the princess.

She gazed at him; her brow knitted in a little perplexed frown. She
thought that he had been taking the peaches; but she was not sure; and
his serene guileless face and limpid blue eyes gave the suspicion the
lie. She thought that he looked a nice boy.

He gazed at her with growing interest and approval—as much approval as
one could give to a girl. The Princess Elizabeth had beautiful gray
eyes; and though her pale cheeks were a little hollow, and the line
from the cheek-bone to the corner of the chin was so straight that it
made her face almost triangular, it was a pretty face. She looked
fragile; and he felt sorry for her.

“This garden’s very hot,” he said. “It’s like holding one’s face over
an oven.”

“Oh, it is,” said the princess, with impatient weariness.

“Yet there’s quite a decent little breeze blowing over the top of the
walls,” said the Terror.

The princess sighed, and they gazed at each other with curious
examining eyes. Certainly he looked a nice boy.

“I tell you what: come out into the wood. I know an awfully cool place.
You’d find it very refreshing,” said the Terror in the tone of one who
has of a sudden been happily inspired.

The princess looked back along the wall of pear tree irresolutely at
the sleeping baroness. The sight of that richly crimson face made the
garden feel hotter than ever.

“Do come. My sister’s here, and it will be very jolly in the wood—the
three of us,” said the Terror in his most persuasive tone.

The princess hesitated, and again she looked back at the sleeping but
unbeautiful baroness; then she said with a truly German frankness:

“Are you well-born?”

The Terror smiled a little haughtily in his turn and said slowly:
“Well, from what Mrs. Blenkinsop said, the Dangerfields were barons in
the Weald before they were any Hohenzollerns. And they did very well at
Crécy and Agincourt, too,” he added pensively.

The princess seemed reassured; but she still hesitated.

“Suppose the baroness were to wake?” she said.

A light of understanding brightened the Terror’s face: “Oh, is that the
baroness snoring? I thought it was a pig,” he said frankly. “She won’t
wake for another hour. Nobody snoring like that could.”

The assurance seemed to disperse the last doubts of the princess. She
cast one more look back at her crimson Argus, and said: “Very goot; I
will coom.”

She walked to the door lower down the garden wall. When she came
through it, she found the Twins wheeling their bicycles toward it. The
Terror, in a very dignified fashion, introduced Erebus to her as Violet
Anastasia Dangerfield, and himself as Hyacinth Wolfram Dangerfield. He
gave their full and so little-used names because he felt that, in the
case of a princess, etiquette demanded it. Then they moved along the
screen of trees, up the side of the garden wall toward the wood.

The Twins shortened their strides to suit the pace of the princess,
which was uncommonly slow. She kept looking from one to the other with
curious, rather timid, pleased eyes. She saw the landing-net that
Erebus had fastened to the backbone of the Terror’s bicycle; but she
saw no connection between it and the vanishing peaches.

They passed straight from the screen of trees through a gap into the
home wood, a gap of a size to let them carry their bicycles through
without difficulty, took a narrow, little used path into the depths of
the wood, and moved down it in single file.

“I expect you never found this path,” said the Terror to the princess
who was following closely on the back wheel of his bicycle.

“No, I haf not found it. I haf never been in this wood till now,” said
the princess.

“You haven’t been in this wood! But it’s the home wood—the jolliest
part of the estate,” cried the Terror in the liveliest surprise. “And
there are two paths straight into it from the gardens.”

“But I stay always in the gardens,” said the princess sedately. “The
Baroness Von Aschersleben does not walk mooch; and she will not that I
go out of sight of her.”

“But you must get awfully slack, sticking in the gardens all the time,”
said Erebus.

“Slack? What is slack?” said the princess.

“She means feeble,” said the Terror. “But all the same those gardens
are big enough; there’s plenty of room to run about in them.”

“But I do not run. It is not dignified. The Baroness Von Aschersleben
would be shocked,” said the princess with a somewhat prim air.

“No wonder you’re delicate,” said Erebus, politely trying to keep a
touch of contempt out of her tone, and failing.

“One can not help being delicate,” said the princess.

“I don’t know,” said the Terror doubtfully. “If you’re in the open air
a lot and do run about, you don’t _keep_ delicate. Wiggins used to be
delicate, but he isn’t now.”

“Who is Wiggins?” said the princess.

“He’s a friend of ours—not so old as we are—quite a little boy,” said
Erebus in a patronizing tone which Wiggins, had he been present, would
have resented with extreme bitterness. “Besides, Doctor Arbuthnot told
Mrs. Blenkinsop that if you were always in the open air, playing with
children of your own age, you’d soon get strong.”

“That’s what I’ve come to England for,” said the princess.

“I don’t think there’s much chance of your getting strong in that
peach-garden. It didn’t feel to me like the open air at all,” said the
Terror firmly.

“But it is the open air,” said the princess.

They came out of the narrow path they had been following into a broader
one, and presently they turned aside from that at the foot of a steep
and pathless bank. The Twins started up it as if it were neither here
nor there to them; as, indeed, it was not.

But the princess stopped short, and said in a tone of dismay:

“Am I to climb this?”

The Terror stopped, looked at her dismayed face, set his bicycle
against the trunk of a tree, and said:

“I’ll help you up.”

With that, dismissing etiquette from his mind, he slipped his arm round
the slender waist of the princess, and firmly hauled her to the top of
the bank. He relieved her of most of the effort needed to mount it; but
none the less she reached the top panting a little.

“You certainly aren’t in very good training,” he said rather sadly.

“Training? What is training?” said the princess.

“It’s being fit,” said Erebus in a faintly superior tone.

“And what is being fit?” said the princess.

“It’s being strong—and well—and able to run miles and miles,” said
Erebus raising her voice to make her meaning clearer.

“You needn’t shout at her,” said the Terror.

“I’m trying to make her understand,” said Erebus firmly.

“But I do understand—when it is not the slang you are using. I know
English quite well,” said the princess.

“You certainly speak it awfully well,” said the Terror politely.

He went down the bank and hauled up his bicycle. They went a little
deeper into the wood and reached their goal, the banks of a small pool.

They sat down in a row, and the princess looked at its cool water, in
the cool green shade of the tall trees, with refreshed eyes.

“This _is_ different,” she said with a faint little sigh of pleasure.

[Illustration: “This is different,” she said.]

“Yes; this is the real open air,” said the Terror.

“But I do get lots of open air,” protested the princess. “Why, I sleep
with my window open—at least that much.” She held out her two
forefingers some six inches apart. “The baroness did not like it. She
said it was very dangerous and would give me the chills. But Doctor
Arbuthnot said that it must be open. I think I sleep better.”

“We have our bedroom windows as wide open as they’ll go; and then
they’re not wide enough in this hot weather,” said Erebus in the tone
of superiority that was beginning to sound galling.

“I think if you took off your hat and jacket, you’d be cooler still,”
said the Terror rather quickly.

The princess hesitated a moment; then obediently she took off her hat
and jacket, and breathed another soft sigh of pleasure. She had quite
lost her air of discomfort and boredom. Her eyes were shining brightly;
and her pale cheeks were a little flushed with the excitement of her
situation.

It is by no means improbable that the Twins, as well-brought-up
children, were aware that it is not etiquette to speak to royal
personages unless they first speak to you. If they were, they did not
let that knowledge stand in the way of the gratification of their
healthy curiosity. It may be they felt that in the free green wood the
etiquette of courts was out of place. At any rate they did not let it
trammel them; and since their healthy curiosity was of the liveliest
kind they submitted the princess to searching, even exhaustive,
interrogation about the life of a royal child at a German court.

They questioned her about the hour she rose, the breakfast she ate, the
lessons she learned, the walks she took, the lunch she ate, the games
she played, her afternoon occupations, her dolls, her pets, her tea,
her occupations after tea, her dinner, her occupations after dinner,
the hour she went to bed.

There seemed nothing impertinent in their curiosity to the princess; it
was only natural that every detail of the life of a person of her
importance should be of the greatest interest to less fortunate
mortals. She was not even annoyed by their carelessness of etiquette in
not waiting to be spoken to before they asked a question. Indeed she
enjoyed answering their questions very much, for it was seldom that any
one displayed such a genuine interest in her; it was seldom, indeed,
that she found herself on intimate human terms with any of her fellow
creatures. She had neither brothers nor sisters; and she had never had
any really sympathetic playmates. The children of Cassel-Nassau were
always awed and stiff in her society; their minds were harassed by the
fear lest they should be guilty of some appalling breach of etiquette.
The manner of the Twins, therefore, was a pleasant change for her. They
were polite, but quite unconstrained; and the obsequious people by whom
she had always been surrounded had never displayed that engaging
quality, save when, like the baroness, they were safely asleep in her
presence.

But her account of her glories did not have the effect on her new
friends she looked for. As she exposed more and more of the trammeling
net of etiquette in which from her rising to her going to bed she was
enmeshed, their faces did not fill with the envy she would have found
so natural on them; they grew gloomy.

At the end of the interrogation Erebus heaved a great sigh, and said
with heart-felt conviction:

“Well, thank goodness, I’m not a princess! It must be perfectly awful!”

“It must be nearly as bad to be a prince,” said the Terror in the
gloomy tone of one who has lost a dear illusion.

The princess could not believe her ears; she stared at the Twins with
parted lips and amazed incredulous eyes. Their words had given her the
shock of her short lifetime. As far as memory carried her back, she had
been assured, frequently and solemnly, that to be a princess, a German
princess, a Hohenzollern princess, was the most glorious and delightful
lot a female human being could enjoy, only a little less glorious and
delightful than the lot of a German prince.

“B-b-but it’s sp-p-plendid to be a princess! Everybody says so!” she
stammered.

“They were humbugging you. You’ve just made it quite clear that it’s
horrid in every kind of way. Why, you can’t do any single thing you
want to. There’s always somebody messing about you to see that you
don’t,” said Erebus with cold decision.

“B-b-but one is a _p-p-princess_,” stammered the princess, with
something of the wild look of one beneath whose feet the firm earth has
suddenly given way.

The Terror perceived her distress; and he set about soothing it.

“You’re forgetting the food,” he said quickly to Erebus. “I don’t
suppose she ever has to eat cold mutton; and I expect she can have all
the sweets and ices she wants.”

“Of course,” said the princess; and then she went on quickly: “B-b-but
it isn’t what you have to eat that makes it so—so—so important being a
princess. It’s—”

“But it’s awfully important what you have to eat!” cried the Terror.

“I should jolly well think so!” cried Erebus.

The princess tried hard to get back to the moral sublimities of her
exalted station; but the Twins would not have it. They kept her firmly
to the broad human questions of German cookery and sweets. The
princess, used to having information poured into her by many elderly
but bespectacled gentlemen and ladies, was presently again enjoying her
new part of dispenser of information. Her cheeks were faintly flushed;
and her eyes were sparkling in an animated face.

In these interrogations and discussions the time had slipped away
unheeded by the interested trio. The crimson baroness had awakened,
missed her little charge, and waddled off into the house in search of
her. A slow search of the house and gardens revealed the fact that she
was not in them. As soon as this was clear the baroness fell into a
panic and insisted that the whole household should sally forth in
search of her.

The princess was earnestly engaged in an effort to make quite dear to
the Twins the exact nature of one of the obscure kinds of German
tartlet, a kind, indeed, only found in the principality of
Cassel-Nassau, where the keen ears of the Terror caught the sound of a
distant voice calling out.

He rose sharply to his feet and said: “Listen! There’s some one
calling. I expect they’ve missed you and you’ll have to be getting
back.”

The princess rose reluctantly. Then her face clouded; and she said in a
tone of faint dismay: “Oh, dear! How annoyed the baroness will be!”

“You take a great deal too much notice of that baroness,” said Erebus.

“But I have to; she’s my—my _gouvernante_,” said the princess.

“I don’t see what good it is being a princess, if you do just what
baronesses tell you all the time,” said Erebus coldly.

The princess looked at her rather helplessly; she had never thought of
rebelling.

“I don’t think I should tell her that you’ve been with us. She mightn’t
think we were good for you. Some people round here don’t seem to
understand us,” said the Terror suavely.

The princess looked from one to the other, hesitating with puckered
brow; and then, with a touch of appeal in her tone, she said, “Are you
coming to-morrow?”

The Twins looked at each other doubtfully. They had no plans for the
morrow; but they had hopes that Fortune would find them some more
exciting occupation than discussing Germany with one of its
inhabitants.

At their hesitation the princess’ face fell woefully; and the appeal in
it touched the Terror’s heart.

“We should like to come very much,” he said.

The face of the princess brightened; and her grateful eyes shone on
him.

“I don’t think I shall be able to come,” said Erebus with the important
air of one burdened with many affairs.

The face of the princess did not fall again; she said: “But if your
brother comes?”

“Oh, I’ll come, anyhow,” said the Terror.

The voice called again from the wood below, louder.

“Oh, it isn’t the baroness. It’s Miss Lambart,” said the princess in a
tone of relief.

“You take too much notice of that baroness,” said Erebus again firmly.
“Who is Miss Lambart?”

“She’s my English lady-in-waiting. I always have one when I’m in
England, of course. I like her. She tries to amuse me. But the baroness
doesn’t like her,” said the princess, and she sighed.

“Come along, I’ll help you down the bank and take you pretty close to
Miss Lambart. It wouldn’t do for her to know of this place. It’s our
secret lair,” said the Terror.

“I see,” said the princess.

They walked briskly to the edge of the steep bank; and he half carried
her down it; and he led her through the wood toward the drive from
which Miss Lambart had called. As they went he adjured her to confine
herself to the simple if incomplete statement that she had been walking
in the wood. His last words to her, as they stood on the edge of the
drive, were:

“Don’t you stand so much nonsense from that baroness.”

Miss Lambart called again; the princess stepped into the drive and
found her thirty yards away. The Terror slipped noiselessly away
through the undergrowth.

Miss Lambart turned at the sound of the princess’ footsteps, and said:
“Oh, here you are, Highness. We’ve all been hunting for you. The
baroness thought you were lost.”

“I thought I would walk in the wood,” said the princess demurely.

“It certainly seems to have done you good. You’re looking brighter and
fresher than you’ve looked since you’ve been down here.”

“The wood is real open air,” said the princess.




 CHAPTER IX
AND THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM


The Terror returned to Erebus and found her stretched at her ease,
eating a peach.

“I should have liked one a good deal sooner,” he said, as he took one
from the basket. “But I didn’t like to say anything about them. She
mightn’t have understood.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t,” said Erebus somewhat
truculently.

She was feeling some slight resentment that their new acquaintance had
so plainly preferred the Terror to her.

“She’s not a bad kid,” said the Terror thoughtfully.

“She’s awfully feeble. Why, you had to carry her up this bit of a bank.
She’s not any use to us,” said Erebus in a tone of contempt. “In fact,
if we were to have much to do with her, I expect we should find her a
perfect nuisance.”

“Perhaps. Still we may as well amuse her a bit. She seems to be having
a rotten time with that old red baroness and all that etiquette,” said
the Terror in a kindly tone.

“She needn’t stand it, if she doesn’t like it. I shouldn’t,” said
Erebus coldly; then her face brightened, and she added: “I tell you
what though: it would be rather fun to teach her to jump on that old
red baroness.”

“Yes,” said the Terror doubtfully. “But I expect she’d take a lot of
teaching. I don’t think she’s the kind of kid to do much jumping on
people.”

“Oh, you never know. We can always try,” said Erebus cheerfully.

“Yes,” said the Terror.

Warmed by this noble resolve, they moved quietly out of the wood. It
was not so difficult a matter as it may sound to move, even encumbered
by bicycles, about the home wood, for it was not so carefully preserved
as the woods farther away from the Grange; indeed, the keepers paid but
little attention to it. The Twins moved out of it safely and returned
home with easy minds: it did not occur to either of them that they had
been treating a princess with singular firmness. Nor were they at all
troubled about the acquisition of the peaches since some curious mental
kink prevented them from perceiving that the law of meum and tuum
applied to fruit.

Mrs. Dangerfield was presented with only two peaches at tea that
afternoon; and she took it that the Twins had ridden into Rowington and
bought them for her there. When two more were forthcoming for her
dessert after dinner, she reproached them gently for spending so much
of their salary for “overseering” on her. The Twins said nothing. It
was only when two more peaches came up on her breakfast tray that she
began to suspect that they had come by the ways of warfare and not of
trade. Then, having already eaten four of them, it was a little late to
inquire and protest. Moreover, if there had been a crime, the Twins had
admitted her to a full share in it by letting her eat the fruit of it.
Plainly it was once more an occasion for saying nothing.

On the next afternoon Erebus set out with the Terror to Muttle Deeping
home wood early enough; but owing to the matter of a young rabbit who
met them on their way, they kept the princess waiting twenty minutes.
This was, indeed, a new experience to her; but she did not complain to
them of this unheard-of breach of etiquette. She was doubtful how the
complaint would be received at any rate by Erebus.

They betook themselves at once to the cool and shady pool; and since
the sensation was no longer new and startling, the princess found it
rather pleasant to be hauled up the bank by the Terror. There was
something very satisfactory in his strength. Again they settled
themselves comfortably on the bank of the pool.

They were in the strongest contrast to one another. Beside the clear
golden tan of the Terror and the deeper gipsy-like brown of Erebus the
pale face of the princess looked waxen. The blue linen blouse, short
serge skirt and bare head and legs of Erebus and the blue linen shirt,
serge knickerbockers and bare head and legs of the Terror gave them an
air not only of coolness but also of a workmanlike freedom of limb. In
her woolen blouse, brown serge jacket and skirt, woolen stockings and
heavily-trimmed drooping hat the poor little princess looked a swaddled
sweltering doll melting in the heat.

She needed no pressing to take off her jacket and hat; and was pleased
by the Terror’s observing that it was just silly to wear a hat at all
when one had such thick hair as she. But she was some time acting on
Erebus’ suggestion that she should also pull off her stockings and be
more comfortable still.

At last she pulled them off, and for once comfortable, she began to
tell of the fuss the excited baroness had made the day before about her
having gone alone into such a fearful and dangerous place as the home
wood.

“I tell you what: you’ve spoilt that baroness,” said the Terror when
she came to the end of her tale; and he spoke with firm conviction.

“But she’s my _gouvernante_. I have to do as she bids,” protested the
princess.

“That’s all rubbish. You’re the princess; and other people ought to do
what you tell them; and no old baroness should make you do any silly
thing you don’t want to. She wouldn’t me,” said Erebus with even
greater conviction than the Terror had shown.

“I don’t think she would,” said the princess with a faint sigh; and she
looked at Erebus with envious eyes. “But when she starts making a fuss
and gets so red and excited, she—she—rather frightens me.”

“It would take a lot more than that to frighten me,” said Erebus with a
very cold ferocity.

“I rather like people like that. I think they look so funny when
they’re really red and excited,” said the Terror gently. “But what
you’ve got to do is to stand up to her.”

“Stand up to her?” said the princess, puzzled by the idiom.

“Tell her that you don’t care what she says,” said the Terror.

“Cheek her,” said Erebus.

“I couldn’t. It would be too difficult,” said the princess, shaking her
head.

“Of course it isn’t easy at first; but you’ll be surprised to find how
soon you’ll get used to shutting her up,” said the Terror. “But I don’t
believe in cheeking her unless she gets very noisy. I believe in being
quite polite but not giving way.”

“She is very noisy,” said the princess.

“Oh, then you’ll have to shout at her. It’s the only way. But mind you
only have rows when you’re in the right about something,” said the
Terror. “Then she’ll soon learn to leave you alone. It’s no good having
a row when you’re in the wrong.”

“I think it’s best always to have a row,” said Erebus with an air of
wide experience.

“Well, it isn’t—at least it wouldn’t be for the princess—she’s not like
you,” said the Terror quickly.

“Oh, no: not always—only when one is in the right. I see that,” said
the princess. “But what should I have a row about?”

The Twins puckered their brows as they cudgeled their brains for a
pretext for an honest row.

Presently the Terror said: “Why don’t you make them let you have some
one to play with? It’s silly being as dull as you are. What’s the good
of being a princess, if you haven’t any friends?”

“Oh, yes!” cried the princess; and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes
sparkled. “It would be nice! You and Erebus could come to tea with me
and sooper and loonch often and again!”

The Twins looked at each other with eyes full of a sudden dismay. It
was not in their scheme of things as they should be that they should go
to the Grange in the immaculate morning dress of an English boy and
girl, and spend stiff hours in the presence of a crimson baroness.

“That wouldn’t do at all,” said the Terror quickly. “You had better not
tell them anything at all about us. They wouldn’t let us come to the
Grange; and they’d stop you coming here. It’s ever so much nicer
meeting secretly like this.”

“But it would be very nice to meet at the Grange as well as here,” said
the princess, who felt strongly that she could not have enough of this
good thing.

“It couldn’t be done. They wouldn’t have us at the Grange,” said
Erebus, supporting the Terror.

“But why not?” said the princess in surprise.

“The people about here don’t understand us,” said the Terror somewhat
sadly. “They’d think we should be bad for you.”

“But it is not so! You are ever so good to me!” cried the princess
hotly.

“It’s no good. You couldn’t make grown-ups see that—you know what they
are. No; you’d much better leave it alone, and sit tight and meet us
here,” said the Terror.

The princess sat thoughtful and frowning for a little while; then she
sighed and said: “Well, I will do what you say. You know more about
it.”

“That’s all right,” said the Terror, greatly relieved.

There was a short silence; then he said thoughtfully: “I tell you what:
it would be a good thing if you were to get some muscle on you. Suppose
we taught you some exercises. You could practise them at home; and soon
you’d be able to do things when you were with us.”

“What things?” said the princess.

“Oh, you’d be able to run—and jump. Why we might even be able to teach
you to climb,” said the Terror with a touch of enthusiasm in his tone
as the loftier heights of philanthropy loomed upon his inner vision.

“Oh, that would be nice!” cried the princess. Forthwith the Twins set
about teaching her some of the exercises which go to the making of
muscle; and the princess was a painstaking pupil. In spite of the seeds
of revolt they had sown in her heart, she was eager to get back to the
peach-garden before the baroness should awake, or at any rate before
she should have satisfied herself that her charge was not in the house
or about the gardens. The Terror therefore conducted her down the
screen of trees to the door in the wall. She had left it unlatched; and
he pushed it open gently. There was no sound of snoring: the baroness
had awoke and left the garden.

“I expect she is still looking for me in the house,” said the princess
calmly. “They’d be shouting if she weren’t.”

“Yes. I say; do you want _all_ these peaches?” said the Terror, looking
round the loaded walls.

“Me? No. I have a peach for breakfast and another for lunch. But I
don’t care for peaches much. It’s the way the baroness eats them, I
think—the juice roonning down, you know. And she eats six or seven
always.”

“That woman’s a pig. I thought she looked like one,” said the Terror
with conviction. “But if you don’t want them all, may I have some for
my mother? The doctor has ordered her fruit; and she’s very fond of
peaches.”

“Oh, yes; take some for your mother and yourself and Erebus. Take them
all,” said the princess with quick generosity.

“Thank you; but a dozen will be heaps,” said the Terror.

The princess helped him gather them and lay them in a large
cabbage-leaf; and then they bade each other good-by at the garden-gate.

The Twins returned home in triumph with the golden spoil. But when she
was provided with two peaches for seven meals in succession, Mrs.
Dangerfield could no longer eat them with a mind at ease, and she asked
the Twins how they came by them. They assured her that they had been
given to them by a friend but that the name of the donor must remain a
secret. She knew that they would not lie to her; and thinking it likely
that they came from either the squire or the vicar, both of whom took
an uncommonly lively interest in her, judging from the fact that either
of them had asked her to marry him more than once, she went on eating
the peaches with a clear conscience.

The next afternoon the Twins devoted themselves to strengthening the
princess’ spirit with no less ardor than they devoted themselves to
strengthening her body. They adjured her again and again to thrust off
the yoke of the baroness. The last pregnant words of Erebus to her
were: “You just call her an old red pig, and see.”

Their efforts in the cause of freedom bore fruit no later than that
very evening. The princess was dining with the Baroness Von
Aschersleben and Miss Lambart; and the baroness, who was exceedingly
jealous of Miss Lambart, had interrupted her several times in her talk
with the princess; and she had done it rudely. The princess, who wanted
to hear Miss Lambart talk, was annoyed. They had reached dessert; and
Miss Lambart was congratulating her on the improvement in her appetite
since she had just made an excellent meal, and said that it must be the
air of Muttle Deeping. The baroness uttered a loud and contemptuous
snort, and filled her plate with peaches. The princess looked at her
with an expression of great dislike. The baroness gobbled up one peach
with a rapidity almost inconceivable in a human being, and very
noisily, and was midway through the second when the princess spoke.

“I want some children to play with,” she said.

Briskly and with the sound of a loud unpleasant sob the baroness gulped
down the other half of the peach, and briskly she said: “Zere are no
children in zis country, your Royal Highness.”

It was the custom for the princess to speak and hear only English in
England.

“But I see plenty of children when I drive,” said the princess.

“Zey are nod children; zey are nod ’igh an’ well-born,” said the
baroness in rasping tones.

“Then you must find some high and well-born children for me to play
with,” said the princess.

“Moost? Moost?” cried the baroness in a high voice. “Bud eed ees whad I
know ees goot for you.”

“They’re good for me,” said the princess firmly. “And you must find
them.”

The baroness was taken aback by this so sudden and unexpected display
of firmness in her little charge; her face darkened to a yet richer
crimson; and she cried in a loud blustering voice: “Bud eed ees
eembossible whad your royal highness ask! Zere are no ’igh an’
well-born children ’ere. Zey are een Loondon.”

“Well, you must send for some,” said the princess, who, having taken
the first step, was finding it pleasant to be firm.

“Moost? Moost? I do nod know whad ees ’appen to you, your Royal
Highness. I say eed ees eembossible!” shouted the baroness; and she
banged on the table with her fist.

“But surely her highness’ request is a very natural one, Baroness; and
there must be some nice children in the neighborhood if we were to look
for them. Besides, Doctor Arbuthnot said that she ought to have
children of her own age to play with,” said Miss Lambart who had been
pitying the lonely child and seized eagerly on this chance of helping
her to the companionship she needed.

“Do nod indervere, Englanderin!” bellowed the baroness; and her crimson
was enriched with streaks of purple. “I am in ze charge of ’er royal
highness; and I zay zat she does not wiz zese children blay.”

The fine gray eyes of the princess were burning with a somber glow. She
was angry, and her mind was teeming with the instructions of her young
mentors, especially with the more violent instructions of Erebus.

She gazed straight into the sparkling but blood-shot eyes of the raging
baroness, and said in a somewhat uncertain voice but clearly enough:

“Old—red—peeg.”

Miss Lambart started in her chair; the baroness uttered a gasping
grunt; she blinked; she could not believe her ears.

“But whad—but whad—” she said faintly.

“Old—red—peeg,” said the princess, somewhat pleased with the effect of
the words, and desirous of deepening it.

“Bud whad ees eed zat ’appen?” muttered the bewildered baroness.

“If you do not find me children quickly, I shall write to my father
that you do not as the English doctor bids; and you were ordered to do
everything what the English doctor bids,” said the princess in a
sinister tone. “Then you will go back to Cassel-Nassau and the Baroness
Hochfelden will be my _gouvernante_.”

The baroness ground her teeth, but she trembled; it might easily
happen, if the letter of the princess found the grand duke of
Cassel-Nassau in the wrong mood, that she would lose this comfortable
well-paid post, and the hated Baroness Hochfelden take it.

“Bud zere are no ’igh an’ well-born children, your Royal Highness,” she
said in a far gentler, apologetic voice.

The princess frowned at her and said: “Mees Lambart will find them. Is
it not, Mees Lambart?”

“I shall be charmed to try, Highness,” said Miss Lambart readily.

“Do nod indervere! I veel zose childen vind myzelf!” snapped the
baroness.

The princess rose, still quivering a little from the conflict, but
glowing with the joy of victory. At the door she paused to say:

“And I want them soon—at once.”

Then, though the baroness had many times forbidden her to tempt the
night air, she went firmly out into the garden. The next morning at
breakfast she again demanded children to play with.

Accordingly when Doctor Arbuthnot paid his visit that morning, the
baroness asked him what children in the neighborhood could be invited
to come to play with the princess. She only stipulated that they should
be high and well-born.

“Well, of course the proper children to play with her would be the
Twins—Mrs. Dangerfield’s boy and girl. They’re high and well-born
enough. But I doubt that they could be induced to play with a little
girl. They’re independent young people. Besides, I’m not at all sure
that they would be quite the playmates for a quiet princess. It would
hardly do to expose an impressionable child like the princess to
such—er—er ardent spirits. You might have her developing a spirit of
freedom; and you wouldn’t like that.”

“_Mein Gott_, no!” said the baroness with warm conviction.

“Then there’s Wiggins—Rupert Carrington. He’s younger and quieter but
active enough. He’d soon teach her to run about.”

“But is he well-born?” said the careful baroness.

“Well-born? He’s a _Carrington_,” said Doctor Arbuthnot with an
impressive air that concealed well his utter ignorance of the ancestry
of the higher mathematician.

The baroness accepted Wiggins gloomily. When the princess, who had
hoped for the Twins, heard that he had been chosen, she accepted him
with resignation. Doctor Arbuthnot undertook to arrange the matter.

The disappointed princess informed the Twins of the election of
Wiggins; and they cheered her by reporting favorably on the
qualifications of their friend, though Erebus said somewhat sadly:

“Of course, he’ll insist on being an Indian chief and scalping you; he
always does. But you mustn’t mind that.”

The princess thought that she would not mind it; it would at any rate
be a change from listening monotonously to the snores of the baroness.

The Twins found it much more difficult to comfort and cheer their
fair-haired, freckled, but infuriated friend. Not only was his
reluctance to don the immaculate morning dress of an English young
gentleman for the delectation of foreign princesses every whit as
sincere as their own, but he felt the invitation to play with a little
girl far more insulting than they would have done. They did their best
to soothe him and make things pleasant for the princess, pointing out
to him the richness of the teas he would assuredly enjoy, and
impressing on him the fact that he would be performing a noble
charitable action.

“Yes; that’s all very well,” said Wiggins gloomily. “But I’ve been
seeing ever such a little of you lately in the afternoons; and now I
shall see less than ever.”

Naturally, he was at first somewhat stiff with the princess; but the
stiffness did not last; they became very good active friends; and he
scalped her with gratifying frequency. In this way it came about that,
in the matter of play, the princess led a double life. She spent the
early part of the afternoon in the wood with the Twins; and from tea
till the dressing-bell for dinner rang she enjoyed the society of
Wiggins. She told no one of her friendship with the Twins; and Wiggins
was surprised by her eagerness to hear everything about them he could
tell. Between them she was beginning to acquire cheerfulness and
muscle; and she was losing her air of delicacy, but not at a rate that
satisfied the exigent Terror.




 CHAPTER X
AND THE ENTERTAINMENT OF ROYALTY


The time had come for the Twins to take their annual change of air.
They took that change at but a short distance from their home, since
the cost of a visit to the sea was more than their mother could afford.
They were allowed to encamp for ten days, if the weather were fine, in
the dry sandstone caves of Deeping Knoll, which rises in the middle of
Little Deeping wood, the property of Mr. Anstruther.

Kind-hearted as the Twins were, they felt that to make the journey from
the knoll to Muttle Deeping home wood was beyond the bounds of
philanthropy; and they broke the news to the princess as gently as they
could. She was so deeply grieved to learn that she was no longer going
to enjoy their society that, in spite of the fact that she had been
made well aware that they despised and abhorred tears, she was
presently weeping. She was ashamed; but she could not help it. The
compassionate Twins compromised; they promised her that they would try
to come every third afternoon; and with that she had to be content.

None the less on the eve of their departure she was deploring bitterly
the fact that she would not see them on the morrow, when the Terror was
magnificently inspired.

“Look here: why shouldn’t you come with us into camp?” he said eagerly.
“A week of it would buck you up more than a month at the Grange. You
really do get open air camping out at the knoll.”

The face of the princess flushed and brightened at the splendid
thought. Then it fell; and she said: “They’d never let me—never.”

“But you’d never ask them,” said the Terror. “You’d just slip away and
come with us. We’ve kept our knowing you so dark that they’d never
dream you were with us in the knoll caves.”

The princess was charmed, even dazzled, by the glorious prospect. She
had come to feel strongly that by far the best part of her life was the
afternoons she spent with the Twins in the wood; whole days with them
would be beyond the delight of dreams. But to her unadventured soul the
difficulties seemed beyond all surmounting. The Twins, however, were
used to surmounting difficulties, and at once they began surmounting
these.

“The difficult thing is not to get you there, but to keep you there,”
said the Terror thoughtfully. “You see, I’ve got to go down every day
for milk and things, and they’re sure to ask me if I’ve seen anything
of you. Of course, I can’t lie about it; and then they’ll not only take
you away, but they’ll probably turn us out of the caves.”

“That’s the drawback,” said Erebus.

The Twins gazed round the wood seeking enlightenment. A deep frown
furrowed the Terror’s brow; and he said: “If only you weren’t a
princess they wouldn’t make half such a fuss hunting for you, and I
might never be asked anything about you.”

“I should have to come to the camp incognita, of course,” said the
princess.

The Terror looked puzzled for a moment; then his face cleared into a
glorious smile, and he cried:

“By Jove! Of course you would! I never thought of that! Why, you’d be
some one else and not the princess at all! We shouldn’t know where the
princess was if we were asked.”

“Of course we shouldn’t!” said Erebus, perceiving the advantage of this
ignorance.

“I generally am the Baroness von Zwettel when I travel,” said the
princess.

The Terror considered the matter, again frowning thoughtfully: “I
suppose you have to have a title. But I think an English one would be
best here: Lady Rowington now. No one would ever ask us where Lady
Rowington is, because there isn’t any Lady Rowington.”

“Oh, yes: Lady Rowington—I would wish an English title,” said the
princess readily.

“If we could only think of some way of making them think that she’d
been stolen by gipsies, it would be safer still,” said Erebus.

“Gipsies don’t steal children nowadays,” said the Terror; and he paused
considering. Then he added, “I tell you what though: Nihilists would—at
least they’d steal a princess. Are there any Nihilists in
Cassel-Nassau?”

“I never heard of any,” said the princess. “There are thousands of
Socialists.”

“Socialists will do,” said the Terror cheerfully.

They were quick in deciding that the princess should not join them till
the second night of their stay in camp, to give them time to have
everything in order. Then they discussed her needs. She could not bring
away with her any clothes, or it would be plain that she had not been
stolen. She must share the wardrobe of Erebus.

“But, no. I have money,” said the princess, thrusting her hand into her
pocket. “Will you not buy me clothes?”

She drew out a little gold chain purse with five sovereigns in it, and
handed it to the Terror. He and Erebus examined it with warm
admiration, for it was indeed a pretty purse.

“We should have had to buy you a bathing-dress, anyhow. There’s a pool
just under the knoll,” said the Terror. “How much shall we want,
Erebus?”

“You’d better have two pounds and be on the safe side,” said Erebus.

The Terror transferred two sovereigns from the purse of the princess to
his own. Then he arranged that she should meet him outside the door of
the peach-garden at nine o’clock, or thereabouts at night. He would
wait half an hour that she might not have to hurry and perhaps arouse
the suspicion that she had gone of her own free will. He made several
suggestions about the manner of her escape.

When she left them, they rode straight to Rowington and set about
purchasing her outfit. They bought a short serge skirt, two linen
shirts, a blue jersey against the evening chill, a cap, sandals,
stockings, underclothing and a bathing-dress. They carried the parcels
home on their bicycles. When she saw them on their arrival Mrs.
Dangerfield supposed that they were parts of their own equipment.

That evening the Terror worked hard at his ingenious device for
throwing the searchers off the scent. It was:

[Illustration: “We are avenged.
A Desparate Socialist”]

He went to bed much pleased with his handiwork.

They spent a busy morning carrying their camping outfit to Deeping
Knoll. The last two hundred yards of path to it was very narrow so that
they transported their belongings to the entrance to it in Tom Cobb’s
donkey-cart, and carried them up to the knoll on their backs.

In other years their outfit had been larger, for their mother had
encamped with them. This year she had not cared for the effort; and she
had also felt that ten days’ holiday out of the strenuous atmosphere
which spread itself round the Twins, would be restful and pleasant. She
was sure that they might quite safely be trusted to encamp by
themselves on Deeping Knoll. Not only were they of approved readiness
and resource; but buried in the heart of that wood, they were as safe
from the intrusion of evil-doers as on some desert South Sea isle. She
was somewhat surprised by the Terror’s readiness to take as many
blankets as she suggested. In other years he had been disposed to
grumble at the number she thought necessary.

The Twins had carried their outfit to the knoll by lunch-time; and they
lunched, or rather dined, with a very good appetite. Then they began to
arrange their belongings, which they had piled in a heap as they
brought them up, in their proper caves. With a break of an hour for a
bath this occupied them till tea-time. After tea they bathed again and
then set about collecting fuel from the wood. They were too tired to
spend much time on cooking their supper; and soon after it, rolled in
their blankets on beds of bracken, they were sleeping like logs. They
were up betimes, bathing.

This day was far less strenuous than the day before. They spent most of
it in the pool or on its bank. In the afternoon Wiggins came and did
not leave them till seven. Soon after eight o’clock the Terror set out
to keep his tryst with the princess. He took with him the Socialist
manifesto and pinned it to the post of a wicket gate opening from the
gardens into the park on the opposite side of the Grange to Deeping
Knoll. Then he came round to the door in the peach-garden wall two or
three minutes before the clock over the stables struck nine.

He had not long to wait; he heard the gentle footfall of the princess
on the garden path, the door opened, and she came through it. He shook
hands with her warmly; and as they went up the screen of trees she told
him how she had bidden the baroness and Miss Lambart good night, gone
to her bedroom, ruffled the bed, locked the door, and slipped, unseen,
down the stairs and out of the house. He praised her skill; and she
found his praise very grateful.

The path to the knoll lay all the way through the dark woods; and the
princess found them daunting. They were full of strange noises, many of
them eery-sounding; and in the dimness strange terrifying shapes seemed
to move. The Terror was not long discovering her fear, and forthwith
put his arm round her waist and kept it there wherever the path was
broad enough to allow it. When she quivered to some woodland sound, he
told her what it was and eased her mind.

She was not strong enough in spite of her exercises and the active
games with Wiggins, to make the whole of the journey over that rough
ground at a stretch; and twice when he felt her flagging they sat down
and rested. The princess was no longer frightened; she still thrilled
to the eeriness of the woods, but she felt quite safe with the Terror.
When they rested she snuggled up against him, stared before her into
the dark, and thought of all the heroes wandering through the forests
of Grimm, with the sense of adventure very strong on her. She was
almost sorry when they came at last to the foot of the knoll and saw
its top red in the glow of the fire Erebus was keeping bright.

[Illustration: She was almost sorry when they came at last to the foot
of the knoll.]

Also Erebus had hot cocoa ready for them; and after her tiring journey
the princess found it grateful indeed. They sat for a while in a row
before the glowing fire, talking of the Hartz Mountains, which the
princess had visited. But soon the yawns which she could not repress
showed her hosts how sleepy she was, and the Terror suggested that she
should go to bed.

With true courtesy, the Twins had given her the best sleeping-cave to
herself, but she displayed such a terrified reluctance to sleep in it
alone, that her couch of bracken and her blankets were moved into the
cave of Erebus. After the journey and the excitement she was not long
falling into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke next morning, she found the Terror gone to fetch milk.
Erebus conducted her down to the pool for her morning bath. The
princess did not like it (she had had no experience of cold baths) but
under the eye of Erebus she could not shrink; and in she went. She came
out shivering, but Erebus helped rub her to a warm glow, and she came
to breakfast with such an appetite as she had never before in her life
enjoyed.

The knoll was indeed the ideal camping-ground for the romantic; the
caves with which it was honeycombed lent themselves to a score of games
of adventure; and the princess soon found that she had been called to
an active life. It began directly after breakfast with dish-washing;
after that she was breathless for an hour in two excited games both of
which meant running through the caves and round and over the knoll as
hard as you could run and at short intervals yelling as loud as you
could yell. After this they put on their bathing-dresses and disported
themselves in the pool till it was time to set about the serious
business of cooking the dinner, which they took soon after one o’clock.

The Terror kept a careful and protective eye on the princess, helping
her, for the most part vigorously, to cover the ground at the required
speed. Also he turned her out of the pool, to dry and dress, a full
half-hour before he and Erebus left it. After dinner the princess was
so sleepy that she could hardly keep her eyes open; and the Terror
insisted that she should lie down for an hour. She protested that she
did not want to rest, that she did not want to lose a moment of this
glorious life; but presently she yielded and was soon asleep.

They were expecting Wiggins in the afternoon. But he could be admitted
safely into the secret, since, once he knew that the princess had
become Lady Rowington, he would be able with sufficient truthfulness to
profess an entire ignorance of her whereabouts. Also he would be very
useful, for he could bring them word if suspicion had fallen on them.

At about half past two he arrived, bringing a great tale of the
excitement of the countryside at the kidnaping of the princess. So far
its simple-minded inhabitants and the suite of the princess were
content with the socialist explanation of her disappearance; and three
counties round were being searched by active policemen on bicycles for
some one who had seen a suspicious motor-car containing Socialists and
a princess. It was the general belief that she had been chloroformed
and abducted through her bedroom window.

With admirable gravity the Twins discussed with Wiggins the
probabilities of their success and of the recovery of the princess, the
routes by which the Socialists might have carried her off, and the
towns in which the lair to which they had taken her might be. At the
end of half an hour of it the princess came out of her cave, her eyes,
very bright with sleep, blinking in the sunlight.

Wiggins cried out in surprise; and the Twins laughed joyfully.

Wiggins greeted the princess politely; and then he said reproachfully:
“You might have told me that she was coming here.”

“You ought to have known as soon as you heard she was missing,” said
Erebus sternly.

“So I should, if I’d known you knew her at all,” said Wiggins.

“That’s what nobody knows,” said Erebus triumphantly.

“And look here: she’s here incognita,” said the Terror. “She’s taken
the traveling name of Lady Rowington; and she’s not the princess at
all. So if you’re asked if the princess is here, you can truthfully say
she isn’t.”

“Of course—I see. This is a go!” said Wiggins cheerfully; and he
spurned the earth.

“The only chance of her being found is for somebody to come up when
we’re not expecting them and see her,” said the Terror. “So I’m going
to block the path with thorn-bushes; and any one who comes up it will
shout to us. But there’s no need to do that yet; nobody will think
about us for a day or two.”

“No; of course they won’t. I didn’t,” said Wiggins.

The active life persisted throughout that day and the days that
followed. It kept the princess always beside the Terror. Always he was
using his greater strength to help her lead it at the required speed.
Never in the history of the courts of Europe has a princess been so
hauled, shoved, dragged, jerked, towed and lugged over rough ground. On
the second morning she awoke so stiff that she could hardly move; but
by the fifth evening she could give forth an ear-piercing yell that
would have done credit to Erebus herself.

All her life the princess had been starved of affection; her mother had
died when she was in her cradle; her father had been immersed in his
pleasures; no one had been truly fond of her; and she had been truly
fond of no one. It is hardly too much to say that she was coming to
adore the Terror. Even at their most violent and thrilling moments his
care for her never relaxed. He rubbed the ache out of her bruises; he
plastered her scratches. He saw to it that she came out of the pool the
moment that she looked chill. He picked out for her the tidbits at
their meals. He even brushed out her hair, for the thick golden mass
was quite beyond the management of the princess; and Erebus firmly
refused to play the lady’s-maid. Since the Terror was one of those who
enjoy doing most things which they are called upon to do, he presently
forgot the unmanliness of the occupation, and began to take pleasure in
handling the silken strands.

It was on the fifth day, after a bath, when he was brushing out her
hair in the sun on the top of the knoll that he received the severe
shock. Heaven knows that the princess was not a demonstrative child;
indeed, she had never had the chance. But he had just finished his task
and was surveying the shining result with satisfaction, when, of a
sudden, without any warning, she threw her arms round his neck and
kissed him.

“Oh, you _are_ nice!” she said.

The Terror’s ineffable serenity was for once scattered to the winds. He
flushed and gazed round the wood with horror-stricken eyes: if any one
should have seen it!

The princess marked his trouble, and said in a tone of distress: “Don’t
you like for me to kiss you?”

The Terror swallowed the lump of horror in his throat, and said,
faintly but gallantly: “Yes—oh, rather.”

“Then kiss me,” said the princess simply, snuggling closer to him.

The despairing eyes of the Terror swept the woods; then he kissed her
gingerly.

“I _am_ fond of you, you know,” said the princess in a frankly
proprietary tone.

The Terror’s scattered wits at last worked. He rose to his feet, and
said quickly:

“Yes; let’s be getting to the others.”

The princess rose obediently.

But the ice was broken; and the kisses of the princess, if not
frequent, were, at any rate, not rare. The Terror at first endured
them; then he came rather to like them. But he strictly enjoined
discretion on her; it would never do for Erebus to learn that she
kissed him. The princess had no desire that Erebus, or any one else for
that matter, should learn; but discretion and kisses have no natural
affinity; and, without their knowing it, Wiggins became aware of the
practise.

He had always observed that the Twins had no secrets from each other;
and he never dreamed that he was letting an uncommonly awkward cat out
of a bag when during a lull in the strenuous life, he said to Erebus:

“I suppose the Terror’s in love with the princess, kissing her like
that. I think it’s awfully silly.” And he spurned the earth.

Erebus grabbed his arm and cried fiercely: “He never does!”

Wiggins looked at her in some surprise; her face was one dusky flush;
and her eyes were flashing. He had seen her angry often enough, but
never so angry as this; and he saw plainly that he had committed a
grievous indiscretion.

“Perhaps she kissed him,” he said quickly.

“He’d never let her!” cried Erebus fiercely.

“Perhaps they didn’t,” said Wiggins readily.

“You know they did!” cried Erebus yet more fiercely.

“I may have made a mistake. It’s quite easy to make a mistake about
that kind of thing,” said Wiggins.

Erebus would not have it, and very fiercely she dragged piecemeal from
his reluctant lips the story of the surprised idyl. He had seen the
princess with an arm round the Terror’s neck, and they had kissed.

With clenched fists and blazing eyes Erebus, taking the line of the
least resistance, sought the princess. She found her lying back
drowsily against a sunny bank.

Erebus came to an abrupt stop before her and cried fiercely: “Princess
or no princess, you shan’t kiss the Terror!”

The drowsiness fled; and the princess sat up. Her gray eyes darkened
and sparkled. She had never made a face in her life; it is not
improbable, seeing how sheltered a life she had led, that she was
ignorant that faces were made; but quite naturally she made a hideous
face at Erebus, and said:

“I shall!”

“If you do, I’ll smack you!” cried Erebus; and she ground her teeth.

For all her Hohenzollern blood, the princess was a timid child; but by
a gracious provision of nature even the timidest female will fight in
the matter of a male. She met Erebus’ blazing eyes squarely and said
confidently:

“He won’t let you. And if you do he’ll smack you—much harder!”

Had the princess been standing up, Erebus would have smacked her then
and there. But she was sitting safely down; and the Queensberry rules
only permit you to strike any one standing up. Erebus forgot them,
stooped to strike, remembered them, straightened herself, and with a
really pantherous growl dashed away in search of the Terror.

She found him examining and strengthening the barrier of thorns; and
she cried:

“I know all about your kissing the princess! I never heard of such
silly babyishness!”

It was very seldom, indeed, that the Terror showed himself sensible to
the emotions of his sister; but on this occasion he blushed faintly as
he said:

“Well, what harm is there in it?”

“It’s babyish! It’s what mollycoddles do! It’s girlish! It’s—”

The Terror of a sudden turned brazen; he said loudly and firmly:

“You mind your own business! It isn’t babyish at all! She’s asked me to
marry her; and when we’re grown up I’m going to—so there!”




 CHAPTER XI
AND THE UNREST CURE


Erebus knew her brother well; she perceived that she was confronted by
what she called his obstinacy; and though his brazen-faced admission
had raised her to the very height of amazement and horror, she uttered
no protest. She knew that protest would be vain, that against his
obstinacy she was helpless. She wrung her hands and turned aside into
the wood, overwhelmed by his defection from one of their loftiest
ideals.

Then followed a period of strain. She assumed an attitude of very
haughty contempt toward the errant pair, devoted herself to Wiggins,
and let them coldly alone. From this attitude Wiggins was the chief
sufferer: the Terror had the princess and the princess had the Terror;
Erebus enjoyed her display of haughty contempt, but Wiggins missed the
strenuous life, the rushing games, in which you yelled so heartily. As
often as he could he stole away from the haughty Erebus and joined the
errant pair. It is to be feared that the princess found the kisses
sweeter for the ban Erebus had laid on them.

No one in the Deepings suspected that the missing princess was on
Deeping Knoll. There had been sporadic outbursts of suspicion that the
Twins had had a hand in her disappearance. But no one had any reason to
suppose that they and the princess had even been acquainted. Doctor
Arbuthnot, indeed, questioned both Wiggins and the Terror; but they
were mindful of the fact that Lady Rowington (they were always very
careful to address her as Lady Rowington) and not the princess, was at
the knoll, and were thus able to assure him with sufficient
truthfulness that they could not tell him where the princess was. The
bursts of suspicion therefore were brief.

But there was one man in England in whom suspicion had not died down.
Suspicion is, indeed, hardly the word for the feeling of Sir Maurice
Falconer in the matter. When he first read in his _Morning Post_ of the
disappearance of the Princess Elizabeth of Cassel-Nassau from Muttle
Deeping Grange he said confidently to himself: “The Twins again!” and
to that conviction his mind clung.

It was greatly strengthened by a study of the reproduction of the
Socialist manifesto on the front page of an enterprising halfpenny
paper. He told himself that Socialists are an educated, even
over-educated folk, and if one of them did set himself to draw a skull
and cross-bones, the drawing would be, if not exquisite, at any rate
accurate and unsmudged; that it was highly improbable that a Socialist
would spell desperate with two “a’s” in an important document without
being corrected by a confederate. On the other hand the drawing of the
skull and cross-bones seemed to him to display a skill to which the
immature genius of the Terror might easily have attained, while he
could readily conceive that he would spell desperate with two “a’s” in
any document.

But Sir Maurice was not a man to interfere lightly in the pleasures of
his relations; and he would not have interfered at all had it not been
for the international situation produced by the disappearance of the
princess. As it was he was so busy with lunches, race meetings,
dinners, theater parties, dances and suppers that he was compelled to
postpone intervention till the sixth day, when every Socialist organ
and organization from San Francisco eastward to Japan was loudly
disavowing any connection with the crime, the newspapers of England and
Germany were snarling and howling and roaring and bellowing at one
another, and the Foreign Office and the German Chancellery were wiring
frequent, carefully coded appeals to each other to invent some
plausible excuse for not mobilizing their armies and fleets. Even then
Sir Maurice, who knew too well the value of German press opinion, would
not have interfered, had not the extremely active wife of a cabinet
minister consulted him about the easiest way for her to sell twenty
thousand pounds’ worth of consols. He disliked the lady so strongly
that after telling her how she could best compass her design, he felt
that the time had come to ease the international situation.

With this end in view he went down to Little Deeping. His conviction
that the Twins were responsible for the disappearance of the princess
became certitude when he learned from Mrs. Dangerfield that they were
encamped on Deeping Knoll, and had been there since the day before that
disappearance. But he kept that certitude to himself, since it was his
habit to do things in the pleasantest way possible.

He forthwith set out across the fields and walked through the home wood
and park to Muttle Deeping Grange. He gave his card to the butler and
told him to take it straight to Miss Lambart, with whom he was on terms
of friendship rather than of acquaintance; and in less than three
minutes she came to him in the drawing-room.

She was looking anxious and worried; and as they shook hands he said:
“Is this business worrying you?”

“It is rather. You see, though the Baroness Von Aschersleben was in
charge of the princess, I am partly responsible. Besides, since I’m
English, they keep coming to me to have all the steps that are being
taken explained; and they want the same explanation over and over
again. Since the archduke came it has been very trying. I think that he
is more of an imbecile than any royalty I ever met.”

“I’m sorry to hear that they’ve been worrying you like this. If I’d
known, I’d have come down and stopped it earlier,” said Sir Maurice in
a tone of lively self-reproach.

“Stop it? Why, what can you do?” cried Miss Lambart, opening her eyes
wide in her surprise.

“Well, I have a strong belief that I could lead you to your missing
princess. But it’s only a belief, mind. So don’t be too hopeful.”

Miss Lambart’s pretty face flushed with sudden hope:

“Oh, if you could!” she cried.

“Put on your strongest pair of shoes, for I think that it will be rough
going part of the way, and order a motor-car, or carriage; if you can,
for the easier part; and we’ll put my belief to the test,” said Sir
Maurice briskly.

Miss Lambart frowned, and said in a doubtful tone: “I shan’t be able to
get a carriage or car without a tiresome fuss. They’re very unpleasant
people, you know. Could we take the baroness with us? She’ll _have_ to
be carried in something.”

“Is she very fat?”

“Very.”

“Then she’d never get to the place I have in mind,” said Sir Maurice.

“Is it very far? Couldn’t we walk to it?”

“It’s about three miles,” said Sir Maurice.

“Oh, that’s nothing—at least not for me. But you?” said Miss Lambart,
who had an utterly erroneous belief that Sir Maurice was something of a
weakling.

“I can manage it. Your companionship will stimulate my flagging limbs,”
said Sir Maurice. “Indeed, a real country walk on a warm and pleasant
afternoon will be an experience I haven’t enjoyed for years.”

Miss Lambart was not long getting ready; and they set out across the
park toward the knoll which rose, a rounded green lump, above the
surface of the distant wood. Sir Maurice had once walked to it with the
Twins; and he thought that his memory of the walk helped by a few
inquiries of people they met would take him to it on a fairly straight
course. It was certainly very pleasant to be walking with such a
charming companion through such a charming country.

As soon as they were free of the gardens Miss Lambart said eagerly:
“Where are we going to? Where do you think the princess is?”

“You’ve been here a month. Haven’t you heard of the Dangerfield twins?”
said Sir Maurice.

“Oh, yes; we were trying to find children to play with the princess;
and Doctor Arbuthnot mentioned them. But he said that they were not the
kind of children for her, though they were the only high and well-born
ones the baroness was clamoring for, in the neighborhood. He seemed to
think that they would make her rebellious.”

“Then the princess didn’t know them?” said Sir Maurice quickly.

“No.”

“I wonder,” said Sir Maurice skeptically.

“We found a little boy called Rupert Carrington to play with her—a very
nice little boy,” said Miss Lambart.

“Wiggins! The Twins’ greatest friend! Well, I’ll be shot!” cried Sir
Maurice; and he laughed.

“But do you mean to say that you think that these children have
something to do with the princess’ disappearance? How old are they?”
said Miss Lambart in an incredulous tone, for fixed very firmly in her
mind was the belief that the princess had been carried off by the
Socialists and foreigners.

“I never know whether they are thirteen or fourteen. But I do know that
nothing out of the common happens in the Deepings without their having
a hand in it. I have the honor to be their uncle,” said Sir Maurice.

“But they’d never be able to persuade her to run away with them. She’s
a timid child; and she has been coddled and cosseted all her life till
she is delicate to fragility,” Miss Lambart protested.

“If it came to a matter of persuasion, my nephew would persuade the
hind-leg, or perhaps even the fore-leg, off a horse,” said Sir Maurice
in a tone of deep conviction. “But it would not necessarily be a matter
of persuasion.”

“But what else could it be—children of thirteen or fourteen!” cried
Miss Lambart.

“I assure you that it might quite easily have been force,” said Sir
Maurice seriously. “My nephew and niece are encamped on Deeping Knoll.
It is honeycombed with dry sand-stone caves for the most part
communicating with one another. I can conceive of nothing more likely
than that the idea of being brigands occurred to one or other of them;
and they proceeded to kidnap the princess to hold her for ransom. They
might lure her to some distance from the Grange before they had
recourse to force.”

“It sounds incredible—children,” said Miss Lambart.

“Well, we shall see,” said Sir Maurice cheerfully. Then he added in a
more doubtful tone; “If only we can take them by surprise, which won’t
be so easy as it sounds.”

Miss Lambart feared that they were on a wild goose chase. But it was a
very pleasant wild goose chase; she was very well content to be walking
with him through this pleasant sunny land. When presently he turned the
talk to matters more personal to her, she liked it better still. He was
very sympathetic: he sympathized with her in her annoyance at having
had to waste so much of the summer on this tiresome _corvée_ of acting
as lady-in-waiting on the little princess; for, thanks to the
domineering jealousy of the baroness, it had been a tiresome _corvée_
indeed, instead of the pleasant occupation it might have been. He
sympathized with her in her vexation that she had been prevented by
that jealousy from improving the health or spirits of the princess.

He was warmly indignant when she told him of the behavior of the
baroness and the archduke during the last few days. The baroness had
tried to lay the blame of the disappearance of the princess on her; and
the archduke, a vast, sun-shaped, billowy mass of fat, infuriated at
having been torn from the summer ease of his Schloss to dash to
England, had been very rude indeed. She was much pleased by the warmth
of Sir Maurice’s indignation; but she protested against his making any
attempt to punish them, for she did not see how he could do it, without
harming himself. But she agreed with him that neither the grand duke,
nor the baroness deserved any consideration at her hands.

Their unfailing flow of talk shortened the way; and they soon were in
the broad aisle of the wood from which the narrow, thorn-blocked path
led to the knoll. Sir Maurice recognized the path; but he did not take
it. He knew that the Twins were far too capable not to have it guarded,
if the princess were indeed with them. He led the way into the wood on
the right of it, and slowly, clearing the way for her carefully, seeing
to it that she did not get scratched, or her frock get torn, he brought
her in a circuit round to the very back of the knoll.

They made the passage in silence, careful not to tread on a twig, Sir
Maurice walking a few feet in front, and all the while peering
earnestly ahead through the branches. Now and again a loud yell came
from the knoll; and once a chorus of yells. Finding that her coldness
(the Terror frankly called it sulking) had no effect whatever on her
insensible brother or the insensible princess, Erebus had put it aside;
and the strenuous life was once more in full swing.

Once after an uncommonly shrill and piercing yell Miss Lambart said in
an astonished whisper:

“That was awfully like the princess’ voice.”

“I thought you said she was delicate,” said Sir Maurice.

“So she was,” said Miss Lambart firmly.

Thanks to the careful noiselessness of their approach, they came unseen
and unheard to the screen of a clump of hazels at the foot of the
knoll, from which they could see the entrance of five caves in its
face. They waited, watching it.

It was silent; there was no sign of life; and Sir Maurice was beginning
to wonder whether they had, after all, been espied by his keen-eyed
kin, when a little girl, with a great plait of very fair hair hanging
down her back, came swiftly out of one of the bottom caves and slipped
into a clump of bushes to the right of it.

“The princess!” said Miss Lambart; and she was for stepping forward,
but Sir Maurice caught her wrist and checked her.

Almost on the instant an amazingly disheveled Wiggins appeared stealing
in a crouching attitude toward the entrance to the cave.

“That nice little boy, Rupert Carrington,” said Sir Maurice.

Wiggins had almost gained the entrance to the cave when, with an
ear-piercing yell, the princess sprang upon him and locked her arms
round his neck; they swayed, yelling in anything but unison, and came
to the ground.

“Delicate to fragility,” muttered Sir Maurice.

“Whatever has she been doing to herself?” said Miss Lambart faintly,
gazing at her battling yelling charge with amazed eyes.

“You don’t know the Twins,” said Sir Maurice.

On his words Erebus came flying down the face of the knoll at a
breakneck pace, yelling as she came, and flung herself upon the
battling pair. As far as the spectators could judge she and the
princess were rending Wiggins limb from limb; and they all three yelled
their shrillest. Then with a yell the Terror leaped upon them from the
cave and they were all four rolling on the ground while the aching
welkin rang.

Suddenly the tangle of whirling limbs was dissolved as Erebus and
Wiggins tore themselves free, gained their feet and fled. The princess
and the Terror sat up, panting, flushed and disheveled. The princess
wriggled close to the Terror, snuggled against him, and put an arm
round his neck.

“It was splendid!” she cried, and kissed him.

Unaware of the watching eyes, he submitted to the embrace with a very
good grace.

“Well, I never!” said Miss Lambart.

“These delicate children,” said Sir Maurice. “But it’s certainly a
delightful place for lovers. I’m so glad we’ve found it.”

He was looking earnestly at Miss Lambart; and she felt that she was
flushing.

“Come along!” she said quickly.

They came out of their clump, about fifteen yards from their quarry.

The quick-eyed Terror saw them first. He did not stir; but a curious,
short, sharp cry came from his throat. It seemed to loose a spring in
the princess. She shot to her feet and stood prepared to fly, frowning.
The Terror rose more slowly.

“Good afternoon, Highness. I’ve come to take you back to the Grange,”
said Miss Lambart.

“I’m not going,” said the princess firmly.

“I’m afraid you must. Your father is there; and he wants you,” said
Miss Lambart.

“No,” said the princess yet more firmly; and she took a step sidewise
toward the mouth of the cave.

The Terror nodded amiably to his uncle and put his hands in his
pockets; he wore the detached air of a spectator.

“But if you don’t come of yourself, we shall have to carry you,” said
Miss Lambart sternly.

The Terror intervened; he said in his most agreeable tone: “I don’t see
how you can. You can’t touch a princess you know. It would be
_lèse-majesté_. She’s told me all about it.”

The perplexity spread from the face of Miss Lambart to the face of Sir
Maurice Falconer; he smiled appreciatively. But he said: “Oh, come;
this won’t do, Terror, don’t you know! Her highness will _have_ to
come.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to get her. The only person who could use
force is the prince himself, and I don’t think he could be got up to
the knoll. He’s too heavy. I’ve seen him. And if you did get him up, I
don’t really think he’d ever find her in these caves,” said the Terror
in the dispassionate tone of one discussing an entirely impersonal
matter.

“Anyhow, I’m not going,” said the princess with even greater firmness.

Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice gazed at each other in an equal
perplexity.

“You see, there isn’t any real reason why she shouldn’t stay here,”
said the Terror. “She came to England to improve her health; and she’s
improving it ever so much faster here than she did at the Grange. You
can _see_ how improved it is. She eats nearly as much as Erebus.”

“She has certainly changed,” said Miss Lambart in a tart tone which
showed exactly how little she found it a change for the better.

“The Twins have a transforming effect on the young,” said Sir Maurice
in a tone of resignation.

“I am much better,” said the princess. “I’m getting quite strong, and I
can run ever so fast.”

She stretched out a tanning leg and surveyed it with an air of
satisfaction.

“But it’s nonsense!” said Miss Lambart.

“But what can you _do_?” said the Terror gently.

“I’ll chance the _lèse-majesté_!” cried Miss Lambart; and she sprang
swiftly forward.

The princess bolted into the cave and up it. Miss Lambart followed
swiftly. The cave ended in a dim passage, ten feet down, the passage
forked into three dimmer passages. Miss Lambart stopped short and tried
to hear from which of them came the sound of the footfalls of the
retiring princess. It came from none of the three; the floor of the
eaves was covered with sound-deadening sand. Miss Lambart walked back
to the entrance of the cave.

“She has escaped,” she said in a tone of resignation.

“Well, I really don’t see any reason for you to put yourself about for
the sake of that disagreeable crew at the Grange. You have done more
than you were called on to do in finding her. You can leave the
catching of her to them. There’s nothing to worry about: it’s quite
clear that this camping-out is doing her a world of good,” said Sir
Maurice in a comforting tone.

“Yes; there is that,” said Miss Lambart.

“Let me introduce my nephew. Hyacinth Dangerfield—better, much better,
known as the Terror—to you,” Said Sir Maurice.

The Terror shook hands with her, and said: “How do you do? I’ve been
wanting to know you: the princess—I mean Lady Rowington—likes you ever
so much.”

Miss Lambart was appeased.

“Perhaps you could give us some tea? We want it badly,” said Sir
Maurice.

“Yes, I can. We only drink milk and cocoa, of course. But we have some
tea, for Mum walked up to have tea with us yesterday,” said the Terror.

“I take it that she saw nothing of the princess,” said Sir Maurice.

“Oh, no; she didn’t see Lady Rowington. You must remember that she’s
Lady Rowington here, and not the princess at all,” said the Terror.

“Oh? I see now how it was that when you were asked at home, you knew
nothing about the princess,” said Sir Maurice quickly.

“Yes; that was how,” said the Terror blandly.

They had not long to wait for their tea, for the Twins had had their
kettle on the fire for some time. Sir Maurice and Miss Lambart enjoyed
the picnic greatly. On his suggestion an armistice was proclaimed. Miss
Lambart agreed to make no further attempt to capture the princess; and
she came out of hiding and took her tea with them.

Miss Lambart was, indeed, pleased with, at any rate, the physical
change in the princess, induced by her short stay at the knoll: she was
a browner, brighter, stronger child. Plainly, too, she was a more
determined child; and while, for her own part, Miss Lambart approved of
that change also, she was quite sure that it would not be approved by
the princess’ kinsfolk and train. But she was somewhat distressed that
the legs of the princess should be marred by so many and such deep
scratches. She had none of the experienced Twins’ quickness to see and
dodge thorns. She took Miss Lambart’s sympathy lightly enough; indeed
she seemed to regard those scratches as scars gained in honorable
warfare.

Miss Lambart saw plainly that the billowy archduke would have no little
difficulty in recovering her from this fastness; and since she was
assured that this green wood life was the very thing the princess
needed, she was resolved to give him no help herself. She was pleased
to learn that she was in no way responsible for the princess’
acquaintance with the Twins; that she had made their acquaintance and
cultivated their society while the careless baroness slept in the
peach-garden.

At half past five Sir Maurice and Miss Lambart took their leave of
their entertainers and set out through the wood. They had not gone a
hundred yards before a splendid yelling informed them that the
strenuous life had again begun.

Miss Lambart had supposed that they would return straight to Muttle
Deeping Grange with the news of their great discovery. But she found
that Sir Maurice had formed other plans. They were both agreed that no
consideration was owing to the billowy archduke. His manners deprived
him of any right to it. Accordingly, he took her to Little Deeping
post-office, and with many appeals to her for suggestions and help
wrote two long telegrams. The first was to the editor of the Morning
Post, the second was to the prime minister. In both he set forth his
discovery of the princess happily encamped with young friends in a
wood, and her reasons for running away to them. The postmistress
despatched them as he wrote them, that they might reach London and ease
the international situation at once. Since both the editor and the
prime minister were on friendly and familiar terms with him, there was
no fear that the telegrams would fail of their effect.

Then he took Miss Lambart to Colet House, to make the acquaintance of
Mrs. Dangerfield, and to inform her how nearly the Twins had plunged
Europe into Armageddon. Mrs. Dangerfield received the news with
unruffled calm. She showed no surprise at all; she only said that she
had found it very strange that a princess should vanish at Muttle
Deeping and the Twins have no hand in it. She perceived at once that
the princess had quite prevented any disclosure by assuming the name of
Lady Rowington.

Miss Lambart found her very charming and attractive, and was in no
haste to leave such pleasant companionship for the dull and unpleasant
atmosphere of Muttle Deeping Grange. It was past seven therefore when
the Little Deeping fly brought her to it; and she went to the archduke
with her news.

She found him in the condition of nervous excitement into which he
always fell before meals, too excited, indeed, to listen to her with
sufficient attention to understand her at the first telling of her
news. He was some time understanding it, and longer believing it. It
annoyed him greatly. He was taking considerable pleasure in standing on
a pedestal before the eyes of Europe as the bereaved Hohenzollern sire.
His first, and accurate, feeling was that Europe would laugh consumedly
when it learned the truth of the matter. His second feeling was that
his noble kinsman, who had been saying wonderful, stirring things about
the Terror’s manifesto and the stolen princess, would be furiously
angry with him.

He began to rave himself, fortunately in his own tongue of which Miss
Lambart was ignorant. Then when he grew cooler and paler his
oft-repeated phrase was: “Eet must be ’ushed!”

Miss Lambart did not tell him that Sir Maurice had taken every care
that the affair should not be hushed up. She did not wish every blow to
strike him at once. Then the dinner-bell rang; and in heavy haste he
rolled off to the dining-room.

Miss Lambart was betaking herself to her bedroom to dress, when the
archduke’s equerry, the young mustached Count Zerbst came running up
the stairs, bidding her in the name of his master come to dinner at
once, as she was. She took no heed of the command, dressed at her ease,
and came down just as the archduke, perspiring freely after his
struggle with the hors-d’oeuvres, soup and fish, was plunging upon his
first entrée.

He ate it with great emphasis; and as he ate it he questioned her about
the place where his daughter was encamped and the friends she was
encamped with. Miss Lambart described the knoll and its position as
clearly as she could, and of the Twins she said as little as possible.
Then he asked her with considerable acerbity why she had not exercised
her authority and brought the princess back with her.

Miss Lambart said that she had no authority over the princess; and that
if she had had it, the princess would have disregarded it wholly, and
that it was impossible to haul a recalcitrant Hohenzollern through
miles of wood by force, since the persons of Hohenzollerns were
sacrosanct.

The archduke said that the only thing to do was to go himself and
summon home his truant child. Miss Lambart objected that it would mean
hewing expensively a path through the wood wide enough to permit his
passage, and it was improbable that the owner of the wood would allow
it. Thereupon the baroness volunteered to go. Miss Lambart with
infinite pleasure explained that for her too an expensive path must be
hewn, and went on to declare that if they reached the knoll, there was
not the slightest chance of their finding the princess in its caves.

The archduke frowned and grunted fiercely in his perplexity. Then he
struck the table and cried:

“Count Zerbst shall do eet! To-morrow morning! You shall ’eem lead to
ze wood. ’E shall breeng ’er.”

Miss Lambart protested that to wander in the Deeping woods with a
German count would hardly be proper.

“Brobare? What ees ‘brobare’?” said the archduke.

“_Convenable_,” said Miss Lambart.

The archduke protested that such considerations must not be allowed to
militate against his being set free to return to Cassel-Nassau at the
earliest possible moment. Miss Lambart said that they must. In the end
it was decided that a motor-car should be procured from Rowington and
that Miss Lambart should guide the archduke and the count to the
entrance of the path to the knoll, the count should convey to the
princess her father’s command to return to the Grange, and if she
should refuse to obey, he should haul her by force to the car.

Miss Lambart made no secret of her strong conviction that he would
never set eyes, much less hands, on the princess. Count Zerbst’s smooth
pink face flushed rose-pink all round his fierce little mustache, which
in some inexplicable, but unfortunate, fashion accentuated the
extraordinary insignificance of his nose; his small eyes sparkled; and
he muttered fiercely something about “sdradegy.” He looked at Miss
Lambart very unamiably. He felt that she was not impressed by him as
were the maidens of Cassel-Nassau; and he resented it. He resolved to
capture the princess at any cost.

The archduke fumed furiously to find, next morning in the _Morning
Post_ the true story of his daughter’s disappearance; and he was fuming
still when the car came from Rowington. It was a powerful car and a
weight-carrier; Miss Lambart, who had telephoned for it, had been
careful to demand a weight-carrier. With immense fuss the archduke
disposed himself in the back of the tonneau which he filled with
billowy curves. The moment he was settled in it Miss Lambart sprang to
the seat beside the driver, and insisted on keeping it that she might
the more easily direct his course.

They were not long reaching the wood; and the chauffeur raised no
objection to taking the car up the broad turfed aisle from which ran
the path to the knoll. At the entrance of it the count stepped out of
the car; and the archduke gave him his final instructions with the air
of a Roman father; he was to bring the princess in any fashion, but he
was to bring her at once.

In a last generous outburst he cried: “Pooll ’er by the ear! Bud breeng
’er.”

The count said that he would, and entered the path with a resolute and
martial air. Miss Lambart was not impressed by it. She thought that in
his tight-fitting clothes of military cut and his apparently
tighter-fitting patent leather boots he looked uncommonly out of place
under the green wood trees. She remembered how lightly the Twins and
the princess went; and she had the poorest expectation of his getting
near any of them. Also, as they had come up the aisle of the woods she
had been assailed by a late but serious doubt, whether a
weight-carrying motor-car was quite the right kind of vehicle in which
to approach the lair of the Twins with hostile intent. Its powerful,
loud-throbbing engine had seemed to her to advertise their advent with
all the competence of a trumpet.

Her doubt was well-grounded. The quick ears of Erebus were the first to
catch its throbbing note, and that while it was still two hundred yards
from the entrance of the path to the knoll. Ever since the departure of
Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice the Twins had been making ready against
invasion, conveying their provisions and belongings to the secret
caves.

The secret caves had not been secret before the coming of the Twins to
the knoll. They were high up on the outer face of it, airy and well
lighted by two inaccessible holes under an overhanging ledge. But the
entrance to them was by a narrow shaft which rose sharply from a cave
in the heart of the knoll. On this shaft the Twins had spent their best
pains for two and a half wet days the year before; and they had reduced
some seven or eight feet of it to a passage fifteen inches high and
eighteen inches broad. The opening into this passage could, naturally,
be closed very easily; and then, in the dim light, it was hard indeed
to distinguish it from the wall of the cave. It had been a somewhat
difficult task to get their blankets and provisions through so narrow a
passage; but it had been finished soon after breakfast.

They were on the alert for invaders; and as soon as they were quite
sure that the keen ears of Erebus had made no mistake and that a car
was coming up the board aisle, the princess and the Terror squirmed
their way up to the secret caves; and Erebus closed the passage behind
them, and with small chunks filled in the interstices between the
larger pieces of stone so that it looked more than ever a part of the
wall of the cave. Then she betook herself to a point of vantage among
the bushes on the face of the knoll, from which she could watch the
entrance of the path and the coming of the invaders.

The archduke, lying back at his ease in the car, and smoking an
excellent cigar, spoke with assurance of catching the one-fifteen train
from Rowington to London and the night boat from Dover to Calais. Miss
Lambart wasted no breath encouraging him in an expectation based on the
efforts of Count Zerbst on the knoll. She stepped out of the car and
strolled up and down on the pleasant turf. Presently she saw a figure
coming down the aisle from the direction of Little Deeping; when it
came nearer, with considerable pleasure she recognized Sir Maurice.

When he came to them she presented him to the archduke as the
discoverer of his daughter’s hiding-place. The archduke, mindful of the
fact that Sir Maurice had given the true story of the disappearance to
the world, received him ungraciously. Miss Lambart at once told Sir
Maurice of the errand of Count Zerbst and of her very small expectation
that anything would come of it. Sir Maurice agreed with her; and the
fuming archduke assured them that the count was the most promising
soldier in the army of Cassel-Nassau. Then Sir Maurice suggested that
they should go to the knoll and help the count. Miss Lambart assented
readily; and they set out at once. They skirted the barriers of thorns
in the path and came to the knoll. It was quiet and seemed utterly
deserted.

They called loudly to the count several times; but he did not answer.
Miss Lambart suggested that he was searching the caves and that they
should find him and help him search them; they plunged into the caves
and began to hunt for him. They did not find the count; neither did
they find the princess nor the Twins. They shouted to him many times as
they traversed the caves; but they had no answer.

This was not unnatural, seeing that he left the knoll just before they
reached it. He had mounted the side of it, calling loudly to the
princess. He had gone through half a dozen caves, calling loudly to the
princess. No answer had come to his calling. He had kept coming out of
the labyrinth on to the side of the knoll. At one of these exits, to
his great joy, he had seen the figure of a little girl, dressed in the
short serge skirt and blue jersey he had been told the princess was
wearing, slipping through the bushes at the foot of the knoll. With a
loud shout he had dashed down it in pursuit and plunged after her into
the wood. Her sunbonnet was still in sight ahead among the bushes, and
by great good fortune he succeeded in keeping it in sight. Once,
indeed, when he thought that he had lost it for good and all, it
suddenly reappeared ahead of him; and he was able to take up the chase
again. But he did not catch her. Indeed he did not lessen the distance
between them to an extent appreciable by the naked eye. For a delicate
princess she was running with uncommon speed and endurance. Considering
his dress and boots and the roughness of the going, he, too, was
running with uncommon speed and endurance. It was true that his face
was a very bright red and that his so lately stiff, tall, white collar
lay limply gray round his neck. But he was not near enough to his
quarry to be mortified by seeing that she was but faintly flushed by
her efforts and hardly perspiring at all. All the while he was buoyed
up by the assurance that he would catch her in the course of the next
hundred yards.

Then his quarry left the wood, by an exceedingly small gap, and ran
down a field path toward the village of Little Deeping. By the time the
count was through the gap she had a lead of a hundred yards. To his
joy, in the open country, on the smoother path, he made up the lost
ground quickly. When they reached the common, he was a bare forty yards
behind her. He was not surprised when in despair she left the path and
bolted into the refuge of an old house that stood beside it.

Mopping his hot wet brow he walked up the garden path with a victorious
air, and knocked firmly on the door. Sarah opened it; and he demanded
the instant surrender of the princess. Sarah heard him with an
exasperating air of blank bewilderment. He repeated his demand more
firmly and loudly.

Sarah called to Mrs. Dangerfield: “Please, mum: ’ere’s a furrin
gentleman asking for a princess. I expect as it’s that there missing
one.”

“Do nod mock! She ’ees ’ere!” cried the count fiercely.

Then Mrs. Dangerfield came out of the dining-room where she had been
arranging flowers, and came to the door.

“The princess is not here,” she said gently.

“But I haf zeen ’er! She haf now ad once coom! She ’ides!” cried the
count.

At that moment Erebus came down the hall airily swinging her sunbonnet
by its strings. The eyes of the count opened wide; so did his mouth.

“I expect he means me. At least he’s run after me all the way from the
knoll here,” said Erebus in a clear quiet voice.

The count’s eyes returned to their sockets; and he had a sudden
outburst of fluent German. He did not think that any of his hearers
could understand that portion of his native tongue he was using; he
hoped they could not; he could not help it if they did.

Mrs. Dangerfield looked from him to Erebus thoughtfully. She did not
suppose for a moment that it was mere accident that had caused the
count to take so much violent exercise on such a hot day. She was sorry
for him. He looked so fierce and young and inexperienced to fall foul
of the Twins.

Erebus caught her mother’s thoughtful eye. At once she cried
resentfully: “How could I possibly tell it was the sunbonnet which made
him think I was the princess? He never asked me who I was. He just
shouted once and ran after me. I was hurrying home to get some salad
oil and get back to the knoll by lunch.”

“Yes, you would run all the way,” said Mrs. Dangerfield patiently.

“Well, you’d have run, too, Mum, with a foreigner running after you!
Just look at that mustache! It would frighten anybody!” cried Erebus in
the tone of one deeply aggrieved by unjust injurious suspicions.

“Yes, I see,” said her mother with undiminished patience.

She invited the count to come in and rest and get cool; and she allayed
his fine thirst with a long and very grateful whisky and soda. He
explained to her at length, three times, how he had come to mistake
Erebus for the flying princess, for he was exceedingly anxious not to
appear foolish in the eyes of such a pretty woman. Erebus left them
together; she made a point of taking a small bottle of salad oil to the
knoll. They had no use for salad oil indeed; but it had been an
after-thought, and she owed it to her conscience to take it. That would
be the safe course.

In the meantime the archduke was sitting impatiently in the car,
looking frequently at his watch. He had expected the count to return
with the princess in, at the longest, a quarter of an hour. Then he had
expected Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice to return with the count and the
princess in, at the longest, a quarter of an hour. None of them
returned. The princess was sitting on a heap of bracken in the highest
of the secret caves, and the Terror was taking advantage of this
enforced quiet retirement to brush out her hair. The count sat drinking
whisky and soda and explained to Mrs. Dangerfield that he had not
really been deceived by the sunbonnet and that he was very pleased that
he had been deceived by it, since it had given him the pleasure of her
acquaintance. Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice sat on a bank and talked
seriously about everything and certain other things, but chiefly about
themselves and each other.

So the world wagged as the archduke saw the golden minutes which lay
between him and the one-fifteen slipping away while his daughter
remained uncaught. He chafed and fumed. His vexation grew even more
keen when he came to the end of his cigar and found that the
thoughtless count had borne away the case. He appealed to the chauffeur
for advice; but the chauffeur, a native of Rowington and ignorant of
Beaumarchais, could give him none.

At half past twelve the archduke rose to his full height in the car,
bellowed: “Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!” and sank down again panting with
the effort.

[Illustration: The archduke bellowed: “Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!”]

The chauffeur looked at him with compassionate eyes. The archduke’s
bellow, for all his huge round bulk, was but a thin and reedy cry. No
answer came to it; no one came from the path to the knoll.

“P’raps if I was to give him a call, your Grace,” said the chauffeur,
somewhat complacent at displaying his knowledge of the right way to
address an archduke.

“Yes, shout!” said the archduke quickly.

The chauffeur rose to his full height in the car and bellowed: “Zerbst!
Zerbst! Zerbst!”

No answer came to the call; no one came from the path to the knoll.

In three minutes the archduke was grinding his teeth in a black fury.

Then with an air of inspiration he cried: “I shout—you shout—all ad
vonce!”

“Every little ’elps,” said the chauffeur politely.

With that they both rose to their full height in the car and together
bellowed: “Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!”

No answer came to it; no one came from the path to the knoll.

On his sunny bank on the side of the knoll Sir Maurice said carelessly:
“He seems to be growing impatient.”

“He isn’t calling us. And it’s no use our going back without either the
princess or the count,” said Miss Lambart quickly.

“Not the slightest,” said Sir Maurice; and he drew her closer, if that
were possible, to him and kissed her.

To this point had their cooperation in the search for the princess and
their discussion of everything and certain other things ripened their
earlier friendship. They, or rather Sir Maurice, had even been
discussing the matter of being married at an early date.

“I don’t think I shall let you go back to the Grange at all. They don’t
treat you decently, you know—not even for royalties,” he went on.

“Oh, it wouldn’t do not to go back—at any rate for to-night—though, of
course, there’s no point in my staying longer, since the princess isn’t
there,” said Miss Lambart.

“You don’t know: perhaps Zerbst has caught her by now and is hauling
her to her circular sire,” said Sir Maurice. “The Twins can not be
successful all the time.”

“We ought to go and search those caves thoroughly,” said Miss Lambart.

“That wouldn’t be the slightest use,” said Sir Maurice in a tone of
complete certainty. “If the princess is in the caves, she is not in an
accessible one. But as a matter of fact she is quite as likely, or even
likelier, to be at the Grange. The Twins are quite intelligent enough
to hide princesses in the last place you would be likely to look for
them. It’s no use our worrying ourselves about her; besides, we’re very
comfortable here. Why not stay just as we are?”

They stayed there.

But the archduke’s impatience was slowly rising to a fury as the
minutes that separated him from the one-fifteen slipped away. At ten
minutes to one he was seized by a sudden fresh fear lest the searchers
should be so long returning as to make him late for lunch; and at once
he despatched the chauffeur to find them and bring them without delay.

The chauffeur made no haste about it. He had heard of the caves on
Deeping Knoll and had always been curious to see them. Besides, he made
it a point of honor not to smoke on duty; he had not had a pipe in his
mouth since eleven o’clock; and he felt now off duty. He explored half
a dozen caves thoroughly before he came upon Miss Lambart and Sir
Maurice and gave them the archduke’s message. They joined him in his
search for Count Zerbst, going through the caves and calling to him
loudly.

The one-fifteen had gone; and the hour of lunch was perilously near.
The face of the archduke was dark with the dread that he would be late
for it. There was a terrifying but sympathetic throbbing not far from
his solar plexus.

Every two or three minutes he rose to his full height in the car and
bellowed: “Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!”

Still no answer came to the call; no one came from the path to the
knoll.

Then at the very moment at which on more fortunate days he was wont to
sink heavily, with his mouth watering, into a large chair before a
gloriously spread German table, he heard the sound of voices; and the
chauffeur, Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice came out of the path to the
knoll.

They told the duke that they had neither seen nor heard anything of the
princess, her hosts, or Count Zerbst. The archduke cursed his equerry
wheezily but in the German tongue, and bade the chauffeur get into the
car and drive to the Grange as fast as petrol could take him.

Sir Maurice bade Miss Lambart good-by, saluted the archduke, and the
car went bumping down the turfed aisle. Once in the road the chauffeur,
anxious to make trial at an early moment of the archducal hospitality,
let her rip. But half a mile down the road, they came upon a
slow-going, limping wayfarer. It was Count Zerbst. After a long
discussion with Mrs. Dangerfield he had decided that since Erebus had
slipped away back to the knoll, it would be impossible for him to find
his way to it unguided; and he had set out for Muttle Deeping Grange.
In the course of his chase of Erebus and his walk back his patent
leather boots had found him out with great severity; and he was indeed
footsore. He stepped into the grateful car with a deep sigh of relief.

A depressed party gathered round the luncheon table; Miss Lambart alone
was cheerful. The archduke had been much shaken by his terrors and
disappointments of the morning. Count Zerbst had acquired a deep
respect for the intelligence of the young friends of the princess; and
he had learned from Mrs. Dangerfield, who had discussed the matter with
Sir Maurice, that since her stay at the knoll was doing the princess
good, and was certainly better for her than life with the crimson
baroness at the Grange, she was not going to annoy and discourage her
charitable offspring by interfering in their good work for trivial
social reasons. The baroness was bitterly angry at their failure to
recover her lost charge.

They discussed the further measures to be taken, the archduke and the
baroness with asperity, Count Zerbst gloomily. He made no secret of the
fact that he believed that, if he dressed for the chase and took to the
woods, he would in the end find and capture the princess, but it might
take a week or ten days. The archduke cried shame upon a strategist of
his ability that he should be baffled by children for a week or ten
days. Count Zerbst said sulkily that it was not the children who would
baffle him, but the caves and the woods they were using. At last they
began to discuss the measure of summoning to their aid the local
police; and for some time debated whether it was worth the risk of the
ridicule it might bring upon them.

Miss Lambart had listened to them with distrait ears since she had
something more pleasant to give her mind to. But at last she said with
some impatience: “Why can’t the princess stay where she is? That
open-air life, day and night, is doing her a world of good. She is
eating lots of good food and taking ten times as much exercise as ever
she took in her life before.”

“Eembossible! Shall I live in a cave?” cried the baroness.

“It doesn’t matter at all where you live. It is the princess we are
considering,” said Miss Lambart unkindly, for she had come quite to the
end of her patience with the baroness.

“Drue!” said the archduke quickly.

“Shall eet zen be zat ze princess live ze life of a beast in a gave?”
cried the baroness.

“She isn’t,” said Miss Lambart shortly. “In fact she’s leading a far
better and healthier and more intelligent life than she does here. The
doctor’s orders were never properly carried out.”

“Ees zat zo?” said the archduke, frowning at the baroness.

“Eengleesh doctors! What zey know? Modern!” cried the baroness
scornfully.

In loud and angry German the archduke fell furiously upon the baroness,
upbraiding her for her disobedience of his orders. The baroness
defended herself loudly, alleging that the princess would by now be
dying of a galloping consumption had she had all the air and water the
doctors had ordered her. But the archduke stormed on. At last he had
some one on whom he could vent his anger with an excellent show of
reason; and he vented it.

Presently, for the sake of Miss Lambart’s counsel in the matter, they
returned to the English tongue and discussed seriously the matter of
the princess remaining at the knoll. They found many objections to it,
and the chief of them was that it was not safe for three children to be
encamped by themselves in the heart of a wood.

Miss Lambart grew tired of assuring them that the Twins were more
efficient persons than nine Germans out of ten; and at last she said:

“Well, Highness, to set your fears quite at rest, I will go and stay at
the knoll myself. Then you can go back to Cassel-Nassau with your mind
at ease; and I will undertake that the princess comes to you in better
health than if she had stayed on here.”

“Bud ’ow would she be zafer wiz a young woman, ignorant and—” cried the
baroness, furious at this attempt to usurp her authority.

“Goot!” cried the archduke cutting her short; and his face beamed at
the thought of escaping forthwith to his home. “Eet shall be zo! And ze
baroness shall go alzo to Cassel-Nassau zo zoon az I zend a lady who do
as ze doctors zay.”

So it was settled; and Miss Lambart was busy for an hour collecting
provisions, arranging that fresh provisions should be brought to the
path to the knoll every morning and preparing and packing the fewest
possible number of garments she would need during her stay.

Then she bade the relieved archduke good-by; and set out in the
Rowington car to the knoll. Not far from the park gates she met Sir
Maurice strolling toward the Grange, and took him with her. At the
entrance of the path to the knoll they took the baskets of provisions
and Miss Lambart’s trunk from the car, and dismissed it. Then they went
to the knoll.

It was silent; there were no signs of the presence of man about it. But
after Sir Maurice had shouted three times that they came in
peace-bearing terms, Erebus and Wiggins came out of one of the caves
above them and heard the news. She made haste to bear it to the Terror
and the princess who received it with joy. They had already been cooped
up long enough in the secret caves and were eager to plunge once more
into the strenuous life. They welcomed Miss Lambart warmly; and the
princess was indeed pleased to have her fears removed and her position
at the knoll secure.

They made Miss Lambart one of themselves and admitted her to a full
share of the strenuous life. She played her part in it manfully. Even
Erebus, who was inclined to carp at female attainments, was forced to
admit that as a brigand, an outlaw, or a pirate she often shone.

But Sir Maurice, who was naturally a frequent visitor, never caught her
engaged in the strenuous life. Indeed, on his arrival she disappeared;
and always spent some minutes after his arrival removing traces of the
speed at which she had been living it, and on cooling down to life on
the lower place. Both of them found the knoll a delightful place for
lovers.




 CHAPTER XII
AND THE MUTTLE DEEPING FISHING


Since the strenuous life was found to be so strengthening to the
princess, the Twins stayed in camp a week longer than had been in the
beginning arranged. Thrown into such intimate relations with Miss
Lambart, it was only natural that they should grow very friendly with
her. It was therefore a bitter blow to Erebus to find that she was not
only engaged to their Uncle Maurice but also about to be married to him
in the course of the next few weeks. She grumbled about it to the
Terror and did not hesitate to assert that his bad example in the
matter of the princess had put the idea of love-making into these older
heads. Then, in a heart to heart talk, she strove earnestly with Miss
Lambart, making every effort to convince her that love and marriage
were very silly things, quite unworthy of those who led the strenuous
life. She failed. Then she tried to persuade Sir Maurice of that plain
fact, and failed again. He declared that it was his first duty, as an
uncle, to be married before his nephew, and that if he were not quick
about it the Terror would certainly anticipate him. Erebus carried his
defense to the Terror with an air of bitter triumph; and there was a
touch of disgusted misanthropy in her manner for several days. The
princess on the other hand found the engagement the most natural and
satisfactory thing in the world. Her only complaint was that she and
the Terror were not old enough to be married on the same day as Miss
Lambart.

Probably Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice enjoyed the life at the knoll
even more than the children, for the felicity of lovers is the highest
felicity, and the knoll is the ideal place for them. Sir Maurice
arrived at it not so very much later, considering his urban habit, than
sunrise; and he did not leave it till long after sunset. But the
pleasantest days will come to an end; and the camp was broken up, since
the archduke’s tenancy of the Grange expired, and the princess must
return to Germany. She was bitterly grieved at parting with the Terror,
and assured him that she would certainly come to England the next
summer, or even earlier, perhaps at Christmas, to see him again. It
seemed not unlikely that after her short but impressive association
with the Twins she would have her way about it. Nevertheless, in spite
of her exhaustive experience of the strenuous life, and of the firm
ideals of those who led it, at their parting she cried in the most
unaffected fashion.

Soon after her departure from the Grange the Twins learned that Sir
James Morgan, its owner, had returned from Africa, where he had for
years been hunting big game, and proposed to live at Muttle Deeping, at
any rate for a while. It had always been their keen desire to fish the
Grange water, for it had been carefully preserved and little fished all
the years Sir James had been wandering about the world. But Mr. Hilton,
the steward of the Grange estate, had always refused their request. He
believed that their presence would be good neither for the stream, the
fish, nor the estate.

But now that they were no longer dealing with an underling whom they
felt to be prejudiced, but with the owner himself, they thought that
they might be able to compass their desire. Also they felt that the
sooner they made the attempt to do so the better: Sir James might hear
unfavorable accounts of them, if they gave him time to consort freely
with his neighbors. Therefore, with the help of their literary
mainstay, Wiggins, they composed a honeyed letter to him, asking leave
to fish the Grange water. Sir James consulted Mr. Hilton about the
letter, received an account of the Twins from him which made him loath
indeed to give them leave; and since he had used a pen so little for so
many years that it had become distasteful to him to use it at all, he
left their honeyed missive unanswered.

The Twins waited patiently for an answer for several days. Then it was
slowly borne in upon them that Sir James did not mean to answer their
letter at all; and they grew very angry indeed. Their anger was in
close proportion to the pains they had spent on the letter. The name of
Sir James was added to the list of proscribed persons they carried in
their retentive minds.

It did not seem likely that they would get any chance of punishing him
for the affront he had put on them. Scorching, in his feverish, Central
African way, along the road to Rowington in a very powerful motor-car,
he looked well beyond their reach. But Fortune favors the industrious
who watch their chances; and one evening Erebus came bicycling swiftly
up to the cats’ home, and cried:

“As I came over Long Ridge I saw Sir James Morgan poaching old
Glazebrook’s water!”

The Terror did not cease from carefully considering the kitten in his
hands, for he was making a selection to send to Rowington market.

“Are you sure?” he said calmly. “It’s a long way from the ridge to the
stream.”

“Not for my eyes!” said Erebus with some measure of impatience in her
tone. “I’m quite sure that it was Sir James; and I’m quite sure that it
was old Glazebrook’s meadow. Lend me your handkerchief.”

The handkerchief that the Terror lent her might have easily been of a
less pronounced gray; but Erebus mopped her beaded brow with it in a
perfect content. She had ridden home as fast as she could ride with her
interesting news.

“I wish I’d seen him too,” said the Terror thoughtfully.

“It’s quite enough for me to have seen him!” said Erebus with some
heat.

“It would be better if we’d both seen him,” said the Terror firmly.

“It’s such beastly cheek his poaching himself after taking no notice of
our letter!” said Erebus indignantly.

“Yes, it is,” said the Terror.

She went on to set forth the enormity of the conduct of their neighbor
at considerable length. The Terror said nothing; he did not look to be
listening to her. In truth he was considering what advantage might be
drawn from Sir James’ transgression.

At last he said: “The first thing to do is for both of us to catch him
poaching.”

Erebus protested; but the Terror carried his point, with the result
that two evenings later they were in the wood above the trout-stream,
stretched at full length in the bracken, peering through the hedge of
the wood at Sir James Morgan so patiently and vainly fishing the stream
below.

“He’ll soon be at the boundary fence,” said the Terror in a hushed
voice of quiet satisfaction.

“If only he goes on catching nothing on this side of it!” said Erebus
who kept wriggling in a nervous impatience.

“It’s on the other side of it they’re rising,” said the Terror in a
calmly hopeful tone.

Sir James, unconscious of those eagerly gazing eyes, made vain cast
after vain cast. He was a big game hunter; he had given but little time
and pains to this milder sport; and he came to the fence at which his
water ceased and that of Mr. Glazebrook began, with his basket still
empty of trout. He looked longingly at his neighbor’s water; as the
Terror had said, the trout in it were rising freely. Then the watchers
saw him shrug his shoulders and turn back.

“He’s not going to poach, after all!” cried Erebus in a tone of acute
disappointment.

“Look here: are you really quite sure you saw him poaching at all? Long
Ridge is a good way off,” said the Terror looking across to it.

“I did. I tell you he was half-way down old Glazebrook’s meadow,” said
Erebus firmly.

“It’s very disappointing,” said the Terror, frowning at the disobliging
fisherman; then he added with philosophic calm: “Well, it can’t be
helped; we’ve got to go on watching him every evening till he does. If
he’s poached once, he’ll poach again.”

“Look!” said Erebus, gripping his arm.

Sir James had stopped fishing and was walking back to the boundary
fence. He stood for a while beside the gap in it, hesitating, scanning
the little valley down which the stream ran, with his keen hunter’s
eyes. It is to be feared that he had been too long used to the
high-handed methods that prevail in the ends of the earth where big
game dwell, to have a proper sense of the sanctity of his neighbor’s
fish. Moreover, Mr. Glazebrook was guilty of the practise of netting
his water and sending the trout, alive in cans, to a London restaurant.
Sir James felt strongly that it was his duty as a sportsman to give
them the chance of making a sportsmanlike end.

But Mr. Glazebrook was an uncommonly disagreeable man; and since
Glazebrook farm marched with the western meadows of the Morgans, the
Morgans and the Glazebrooks had been at loggerheads for at least fifty
years. Assuredly the farmer would prosecute Sir James, if he caught him
poaching.

Yet the valley and the meadows down the stream were empty of human
beings; and as for the wood, there would be no one but his own keeper
in the wood. Doubtless that keeper would, from the abstract point of
view, regard poaching with abhorrence. But he would perceive that his
master was doing a real kindness to the Glazebrook trout by giving them
that chance of making a sportsman-like end. At any rate the keeper
would hold his tongue.

Sir James climbed through the gap.

The Twins breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief; and Erebus said in a
tone of triumph: “Well, he’s gone and done it now.”

“Yes, we’ve got him all right,” said the Terror in a tone of calm
thankfulness.

Fortune favored the unscrupulous; and in the next forty minutes Sir
James caught three good fish.

He had just landed the third when the keen eyes of Erebus espied a
figure coming up the bank of the stream two meadows away.

“Look! There’s old Glazebrook! He’ll catch him! Won’t it be fun?” she
cried, wriggling in her joy.

The Terror gazed thoughtfully at the approaching figure; then he said:
“Yes: it would be fun. There’d be no end of a row. But it wouldn’t be
any use to us. I’m going to warn him.”

With that he sent a clear cry of “Cave!” ringing down the stream.

In ten seconds Sir James was back on his own land.

The Twins crawled through the bracken to a narrow path, went swiftly
and noiselessly down it, and through a little gate on to the high road.

As he set foot on it the Terror said with cold vindictiveness: “We’ll
teach him not to answer our letters.”

He climbed over a gate into a meadow on the other side of the road,
took their bicycles one after the other from behind the hedge, and
lifted them over the gate. They reached home in time for dinner.

During the meal Mrs. Dangerfield asked how they had been spending the
time since tea; and the Terror said, quite truthfully, that they had
been for a bicycle ride. She did not press him to be more particular in
his account of their doings, though from Erebus’ air of subdued
excitement and expectancy she was aware that some important enterprise
was in hand; she had no desire to put any strain on the Terror’s
uncommon power of polite evasion.

She was not at all surprised when, at nine o’clock, she went out into
the garden and called to them that it was bedtime, to find that they
were not within hearing. She told herself that she would be lucky if
she got them to bed by ten. But she would have been surprised, indeed,
had she seen them, half an hour earlier, slip out of the back door, in
a condition of exemplary tidiness, dressed in their Sunday best.

They wheeled their bicycles out of the cats’ home quietly, mounted,
rode quickly down the road till they were out of hearing of the house,
and then slackened their pace in order to reach their destination cool
and tidy. They timed their arrival with such nicety that as they
dismounted before the door of Deeping Hall, Sir James Morgan, in the
content inspired by an excellent dinner, was settling himself
comfortably in an easy chair in his smoking-room.

They mounted the steps of the Court without a tremor: they were not
only assured of the justice of their cause, they were assured that it
would prevail. A landed proprietor who preserves his pheasants and his
fish with the usual strictness, _can not_ allow himself to be
prosecuted for poaching.

The Terror rang the bell firmly; and Mawley, the butler, surprised at
the coming of visitors at so late an hour, opened the door himself.

“Good evening, Mr. Mawley, we want to see Sir James on important
business,” said the Terror with a truly businesslike air.

Mawley had come to the Grange in the train of the Princess Elizabeth;
and since he found the Deeping air uncommonly bracing, he had permitted
Sir James to keep him on at the Grange after her return to
Cassel-Nassau. He had made the acquaintance of the Twins during the
last days of her stay, after the camp had been broken up, and had
formed a high opinion of their ability and their manners. Moreover, of
a very susceptible nature, he had a warm admiration of Mrs. Dangerfield
whom he saw every Sunday at Little Deeping church.

None the less he looked at them doubtfully, and said in a reproachful
tone: “It’s very late, Master Terror. You can’t expect Sir James to see
people at this hour.”

“I know it’s late; but the business is important—very important,” said
the Terror firmly.

Mawley hesitated. His admiration of Mrs. Dangerfield made him desirous
of obliging her children. Then he said:

“If you’ll sit down a minute, I’ll tell Sir James that you’re here.”

“Thank you,” said the Terror; and he and Erebus came into the great
hall, sat down on a couch covered by a large bearskin, and gazed round
them at the arms and armor with appreciative eyes.

Mawley found Sir James lighting a big cigar; and told him that Master
and Miss Dangerfield wished to see him on business.

“Oh? They’re the two children who wrote and asked me for leave to fish.
But Hilton told me that they were the most mischievous little devils in
the county, so I took no notice of their letter,” said Sir James.

“Well, being your steward, Sir James, Mr. Hilton would be bound to tell
you so. But it’s my belief that, having the name for it, a lot of
mischief is put down to them which they never do. And after all they’re
Dangerfields, Sir James; and you couldn’t expect them to behave like
ordinary children,” said Mawley in the tone and manner of a persuasive
diplomat.

“Well, I don’t see myself giving them leave to fish,” said Sir James.
“There are none too many fish in the stream as it is; and a couple of
noisy children won’t make those easier to catch. But I may as well tell
them so myself; so you may bring them here.”

Mawley fetched the Twins and ushered them into the smoking-room. They
entered it with the self-possessed air of persons quite sure of
themselves, and greeted Sir James politely.

He was somewhat taken aback by their appearance and air, for his
steward had somehow given him the impression that they were thick,
red-faced and robustious. He felt that these pleasant-looking young
gentlefolk could never have really earned their unfortunate reputation.
There must be a mistake somewhere.

The Twins were, on their part also, far more favorably impressed by him
than they had looked to be; his lean tanned face, with the rather large
arched nose, the thin-lipped melancholy mouth, not at all hidden by the
small clipped mustache, and his keen eyes, almost as blue as those of
the Terror, pleased them. He looked an uncommonly dependable baronet.

“Well, and what is this important matter you wished to see me about?”
he said in a more indulgent tone than he had expected to use.

“We saw you in Glazebrook’s meadow this afternoon—poaching,” said the
Terror in a gentle, almost deprecatory tone.

Sir James sat rather more upright in his chair, with a sudden sense of
discomfort. He had not connected this visit with his transgression.

“And you caught three fish,” said Erebus in a sterner voice.

“Oh? Then it was one of you who called ‘Cave!’ from the wood?” said Sir
James.

“Yes; we didn’t want old Glazebrook to catch you,” said the Terror.

“Oh—er—thanks,” said Sir James in a tone of discomfort.

“That wouldn’t have been any use to us,” said the Terror.

“Of use to you?” said Sir James.

“Yes; if he’d caught you, there wouldn’t be any reason why we should
fish your water,” said the Terror.

Sir James looked puzzled:

“But is there any reason now?” he said.

“Yes. You see, you were poaching,” said the Terror in a very gentle
explanatory voice.

“And you caught three fish,” said Erebus in something of the manner of
a chorus in an Athenian tragedy.

Sir James sat bolt upright with a sudden air of astonished
enlightenment:

“Well, I’m—hanged if it isn’t blackmail!” he cried.

“Blackmail?” said the Terror in a tone of pleasant animation. “Why,
that’s what the Scotch reavers used to do! I never knew exactly what it
was.”

“And we’re doing it. That is nice,” said Erebus, almost preening
herself.

“But this is disgraceful! If you’d been village children—but
gentlefolk!” cried Sir James with considerable heat.

“Well, the Douglases were gentlefolk; and they blackmailed,” said the
Terror in a tone of sweet reason.

“Poaching’s a misdemeanor; blackmailing’s a kind of stealing,” said
Erebus virtuously, forgetting for the moment her mother’s fur stole.

“Poaching’s a misdemeanor; blackmailing’s a felony,” said Sir James
loftily.

The distinction was lost on the Twins; and Erebus said with conviction:
“Poaching’s worse.”

Sir James hated to be beaten; and he looked from one to the other with
very angry eyes. The Twins wore a cold imperturbable air. Their
appearance no longer pleased him.

“It’s your own fault entirely,” said the Terror coldly. “If you’d been
civil and answered our letter, even refusing, we shouldn’t have
bothered about you. But you didn’t take any notice of it—”

“And it was beastly cheek,” said Erebus.

“You couldn’t expect us to stand that kind of thing. So we kept an eye
on you and caught you poaching,” said the Terror.

“Without any excuse for it. You’ve plenty of fishing of your own,” said
Erebus severely.

“And if I don’t give you leave to fish my water, you’re going to sneak
to the police, are you?” said Sir James in a tone of angry disgust.

The Terror flushed and with a very cold dignity said: “We aren’t going
to do anything of the kind; and we don’t want any leave to fish your
water at all. We’re just going to fish it; and if you go sneaking to
the police and prosecuting us, then after you’ve started it you’ll get
prosecuted yourself by old Glazebrook. That’s what we came to say.”

“And that’ll teach you to be polite and answer people next time they
write to you,” said Erebus in a tone of cold triumph.

On her words they rose; and while Sir James was struggling furiously to
find words suitable to their tender years, they bade him a polite good
night, and left the room.

Their departure was a relief; Sir James rose hastily to his feet and
expressed his feelings without difficulty. Then he began to laugh. It
was rather on the wrong side of his face; and the knowledge that he had
been worsted in his own smoking-room, and that by two children,
rankled. He was not used to being worsted, even in the heart of Africa,
by much more ferocious creatures. But after sleeping on the matter, he
perceived yet more clearly that they had him, as he phrased it, in a
cleft stick; and he told his head-keeper that the Dangerfield children
were allowed to fish his water.




 CHAPTER XIII
AND AN APOLOGY


The vindication of their dignity filled the Twins with a cold undated
triumph; but they enjoyed the liveliest satisfaction in being able to
fish in well-stocked water, because the trout tempted their mother’s
faint appetite.

She had grown stronger during the summer. She was not, indeed,
definitely ill; she was not even definitely weak. But, a woman of
spirit and intelligence, she was suffering from the wearisome emptiness
of her life in the country. It was sapping her strength and energy; in
it she would grow old long before her time. The Twins had been used to
find her livelier and more spirited, keenly interested in their doings;
and the change troubled them. Doctor Arbuthnot prescribed a tonic for
her; and now and again, as in the matter of the peaches and now of the
trout, they set themselves to procure some delicacy for her. But she
made no real improvement; and the empty country life was poisoning the
springs of her being.

Sir James had expected to be annoyed frequently by the sight and sound
of the Twins on the bank of the stream. To his pleased surprise he
neither saw nor heard them. For the most part they fished in the early
morning and brought their catch home to tempt their mother’s appetite
at breakfast. But if they did fish in the evening, one or the other
acted as scout, watching Sir James’ movements; and they kept out of his
sight. They had gained their end; and their natural delicacy assured
them that the sight of them could not be pleasant to Sir James. As the
Terror phrased it:

“He must be pretty sick at getting a lesson; and there’s no point in
rubbing it in.”

Then one evening (by no fault of theirs) he came upon them. Erebus was
playing a big trout; and she had no thought of abandoning it to spare
Sir James’ feelings. Besides, if she had had such a thought, it was
impracticable, since Mrs. Dangerfield had come with them.

He watched Erebus play her fish for two or three minutes; then it
snapped the gut and was gone.

“Evidently you’re no so good at fishing as blackmailing,” said Sir
James in a nasty carping tone, for the fact that they had worsted him
still rankled in his heart.

“I catch more fish than you do, anyhow!” said Erebus with some heat;
and she cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder.

Sir James turned to see what she had glanced at and found himself
looking into the deep brown eyes of a very pretty woman.

[Illustration: Sir James turned and found himself looking into the deep
brown eyes of a very pretty woman.]

He had not seen her when he had come out of the bushes on to the scene
of the struggle; he had been too deeply interested in it to remove his
eyes from it; and she had watched it from behind him.

“This is Sir James Morgan, mother,” said the Terror quickly.

Sir James raised his cap; Mrs. Dangerfield bowed, and said gratefully:
“It was very good of you to give my children leave to fish.”

“Oh—ah—yes—n-n-not at all,” stammered Sir James, blushing faintly.

He was unused to women and found her presence confusing.

“Oh, but it was,” said Mrs. Dangerfield. “And I’m seeing that they
don’t take an unfair advantage of your kindness, for they told me that,
thanks to Mr. Glazebrook’s netting his part of it, there are none too
many fish in the stream.”

“It’s very good of you. B-b-but I don’t mind how many they catch,” said
Sir James.

He shuffled his feet and gazed rather wildly round him, for he wished
to remove himself swiftly from her disturbing presence. Yet he did not
wish to; he found her voice as charming as her eyes.

Mrs. Dangerfield laughed gently, and said: “You would, if I let them
catch as many as they’d like to.”

“Are they as good fishermen as that?” said Sir James.

“Well, they’ve been fishing ever since they could handle a rod. They
are supposed to empty the free water by Little Deeping Village every
spring. So I limit them to three fish a day,” said Mrs. Dangerfield;
and there was a ring of motherly pride in her voice which pleased him.

“It’s very good of you,” said Sir James. He hesitated, shuffled his
feet again, took a step to go; then looking rather earnestly at Mrs.
Dangerfield, he added in a rather uncertain voice: “I should like to
stay and see how they do it. I might pick up a wrinkle or two.”

“Of course. Why, it’s your stream,” she said.

He stayed, but he paid far more attention to Mrs. Dangerfield than to
the fishing. Besides her charming eyes and delightful voice, her air of
fragility made a strong appeal to his vigorous robustness. His first
discomfort sternly vanquished, its place was taken by the keenest
desire to remain in her presence. He not only stayed with them till the
Twins had caught their three fish, but he walked nearly to Colet House
with them, and at last bade them good-by with an air of the deepest
reluctance. It can hardly be doubted that he had been smitten by an
emotional lightning-stroke, as the French put it, or, as we more gently
phrase it, that he had fallen in love at first sight.

As he walked back to the Grange he was regretting that he had not
received the social advances of his neighbors with greater warmth. If,
instead of staying firmly at home, he had been moving about among them,
he would have met Mrs. Dangerfield earlier and by now be in a fortunate
condition of meeting her often. It did not for a moment enter his mind
that if he had met her stiffly in a drawing-room he might easily have
failed to fall in love with her at all. He cudgeled his brains to find
some way of meeting her again and meeting her often. He was to meet her
quite soon without any effort on his part.

It is possible that Mrs. Dangerfield had observed that Sir James had
been smitten by that emotional _coup de foudre_, for she was walking
with a much brisker step and there was a warmer color in her cheeks.

After he had bidden them good-by and had turned back to the Grange, she
said in a really cheerful tone:

“I expect Sir James finds it rather dull at the Grange after the
exciting life he had in Africa.”

“Rather!”, said the Twins with one quickly assenting voice.

She had not missed Sir James’ sentence about the superiority of Erebus’
blackmailing to her fishing. But she knew the Twins far too well to ask
them for an explanation of it before him. None the less it clung to her
mind.

At supper therefore she said: “What did Sir James mean by calling you a
blackmailer, Erebus?”

The Terror knew from her tone that she was resolved to have the
explanation; and he said suavely:

“Oh, it was about the fishing.”

“How—about the fishing?” said Mrs. Dangerfield quickly.

“Well, he didn’t want to give us leave. In fact he never answered our
letter asking for it,” said the Terror.

“And of course we couldn’t stand that; and we had to make him,” said
Erebus sternly.

“Make him? How did you make him?” said Mrs. Dangerfield.

The Terror told her.

Mrs. Dangerfield looked surprised and annoyed, but much less surprised
and annoyed than the ordinary mother would have looked on learning that
her offspring had blackmailed a complete stranger. She felt chiefly
annoyed by the fact that the complete stranger they had chosen to
blackmail should be Sir James.

“Then you did blackmail him,” she said in a tone of dismay.

“He seemed to think that we were—like the Douglases used to,” said the
Terror in an amiable tone.

“But surely you knew that blackmailing is very wrong—very wrong,
indeed,” said Mrs. Dangerfield.

“Well, he _did_ seem to think so,” said the Terror. “But we thought he
was prejudiced; and we didn’t take much notice of him.”

“And we couldn’t possibly let him take no notice of our letter, Mum—it
was such a polite letter—and not take it out of him,” said Erebus.

“And it hasn’t done any harm, you know. We wanted those trout ever so
much more than he did,” said the Terror.

Mrs. Dangerfield said nothing for a while; and her frown deepened as
she pondered how to deal with the affair. She was still chiefly annoyed
that Sir James should have been the victim. The Twins gazed at her with
a sympathetic gravity which by no means meant that they were burdened
by a sense of wrong-doing. They were merely sorry that she was annoyed.

“Well, there’s nothing for it: you’ll have to apologize to Sir
James—both of you,” she said at last.

“Apologize to him! But he never answered our letter!” cried Erebus.

The Terror hesitated a moment, opened his mouth to speak, shut it,
opened it again and said in a soothing tone: “All right, Mum; we’ll
apologize.”

“I’ll take you to the Grange to-morrow afternoon to do it,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield, for she thought that unless she were present the Twins
would surely contrive to repeat the offense in the apology and compel
Sir James to invite them to continue to fish.

There had been some such intention in the Terror’s mind, for his face
fell: an apology in the presence of his mother would have to be a real
apology. But he said amiably: “All right; just as you like, Mum.”

Erebus scowled very darkly, and muttered fierce things under her
breath. After supper, without moving him at all, she reproached the
Terror bitterly for not refusing firmly.

The next afternoon therefore the three of them walked, by a foot-path
across the fields, to the Grange. Surprise and extreme pleasure were
mingled with the respect with which Mawley ushered them into the
drawing-room; and he almost ran to apprise Sir James of their coming.

Sir James was at the moment wondering very anxiously whether he would
find Mrs. Dangerfield on the bank of the stream that evening watching
her children fish. His night’s rest had trebled his interest in her and
his desire to see more, a great deal more, of her. The appeal to him of
her frail and delicate beauty was stronger than ever.

At dinner the night before he had questioned Mawley, with a careless
enough air, about her, and had learned that Mr. Dangerfield had been
dead seven years, that she had a very small income, and was hard put to
it to make both ends meet. His compassion had been deeply stirred; she
was so plainly a creature who deserved the smoothest path in life. He
wished that he could now, at once, see his way to help her to that
smoothest path; and he was resolved to find that way as soon as he
possibly could.

When Mawley told him that she was in his drawing-room, he could
scarcely believe his joyful ears. He had to put a constraint on himself
to walk to its door in a decorous fashion fit for Mawley’s eyes, and
not dash to it at full speed. He entered the room with his eyes shining
very brightly.

Mrs. Dangerfield greeted him coldly, even a little haughtily. She was
looking grave and ill at ease.

“I’ve come about a rather unpleasant matter, Sir James,” she said as
they shook hands. “I find that these children have been blackmailing
you; and I’ve brought them to apologize. I—I’m exceedingly distressed
about it.”

“Oh, there’s no need to be—no need at all. It was rather a joke,” Sir
James protested quickly.

“But blackmailing isn’t a joke—though of course they didn’t realize
what a serious thing it is—”

“It was the Douglases doing it,” broke in the Terror in an explanatory
tone.

“I don’t think you ought to have given way to them, Sir James,” said
Mrs. Dangerfield severely.

“But I hadn’t any choice, I assure you. They had me in a cleft stick,”
protested Sir James.

“Well then you ought to have come straight to me,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield.

“Oh, but really—a little fishing—what is a little fishing? I couldn’t
come bothering you about a thing like that,” protested Sir James.

“But it isn’t a little thing if you get it like that,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield. “Anyhow, it’s going to stop; and they’re going to
apologize.”

She turned to them; and as if at a signal the Twins said with one
voice:

“I apologize for blackmailing you, Sir James.”

The Terror spoke with an amiable nonchalance; the words came very
stiffly from the lips of Erebus, and she wore a lowering air.

“Oh, not at all—not at all—don’t mention it. Besides, I owe you an
apology for not answering your letter,” said Sir James in all the
discomfort of a man receiving something that is not his due. Then he
heaved a sigh of relief and added: “Well, that’s all right. And now I
hope you’ll do all the fishing you want to.”

“Certainly not; I can’t allow them to fish your water any more,” said
Mrs. Dangerfield sternly.

“Oh, but really,” said Sir James with a harried air.

“No,” said Mrs. Dangerfield; and she held out her hand.

“But you’ll have some tea—after that hot walk!” cried Sir James.

“No, thank you, I must be getting home,” said Mrs. Dangerfield firmly.

Sir James did not press her to stay; he saw that her mind was made up.

He opened the door of the drawing-room, and they filed out. As Erebus
passed out, she turned and made a hideous grimace at him. She was
desirous that he should not overrate her apology.




 CHAPTER XIV
AND THE SOUND OF WEDDING BELLS


Sir James came through the hall with them, carelessly taking his cap
from the horn of an antelope on the wall as he passed it. He came down
the steps, along the gardens to the side gate, and through it into the
park, talking to Mrs. Dangerfield of the changes he had found in the
gardens of the Grange after his last five years of big game shooting
about the world.

Mrs. Dangerfield had not liked her errand; and she was in no mood for
companionship. But she could not drive him from her side on his own
land. They walked slowly; the Twins forged ahead. When Sir James and
Mrs. Dangerfield came out of the park, the Twins were out of sight.
Mere politeness demanded that he should walk the rest of the way with
her.

When the Twins were out of the hearing of their mother and Sir James,
the Terror said:

“Well, he was quite decent about it. It made him much more
uncomfortable than we were. I suppose it was because we’re more used to
Mum.”

“What did the silly idiot want to give us away at all for?” said the
unappeased Erebus.

“Oh, well; he didn’t mean to. It was an accident, you know,” said the
Terror.

His provident mind foresaw advantages to be attained from a closer
intimacy with Sir James.

“Accident! People shouldn’t have accidents like that!” said Erebus in a
tone of bitter scorn.

When he and Mrs. Dangerfield came out of the park, Sir James
diplomatically fell to lauding the Twins to the skies, their beauty,
their grace and their intelligence. The diplomacy was not natural (he
was no diplomat) but accidental: the Twins were the only subject he
could at the moment think of. He could not have found a quicker way to
Mrs. Dangerfield’s approval. She had been disposed to dislike him for
having been blackmailed by them; his praise of them softened her heart.
Discussing them, they came right to the gate of Colet House; and it was
only natural that she should invite him to tea. He accepted with
alacrity. At tea he changed the subject: they talked about her.

He came home yet more interested in her, resolved yet more firmly to
see more of her. With a natural simplicity he used his skill in
woodcraft to compass his end, and availed himself of the covert
afforded by the common to watch Colet House. Thanks to this simple
device he was able to meet or overtake Mrs. Dangerfield, somewhere in
the first half-mile of her afternoon walk.

They grew intimate quickly, thanks chiefly to his simple directness;
and he found that his first impression that he wanted her more than he
had ever wanted anything in his life, more even than he had wanted, in
his enthusiastic youth, to shoot a black rhinoceros, was right. He had
been making arrangements for another shooting expedition; but he
perceived now very clearly, indeed, that it was his immediate duty to
settle down in life, provide the Hall with a mistress, and do his duty
by his estate and his neighbors.

He had had no experience of women; but his hunting had developed his
instinct and he perceived that he must proceed very warily indeed, that
to bring Mrs. Dangerfield over the boundary-line of friendship into the
land of romance was the most difficult enterprise he had ever dreamed
of. But he had a stout heart, the hunter’s pertinacity, and a burning
resolve to succeed.

He wanted all the help he could get; and he saw that the Twins would be
useful friends in the matter. But did they chance on him walking with
their mother, or at tea with her, they held politely but gloomily
aloof. He must abate their hostility.

He contrived, therefore, to meet them on the common as they were
starting one afternoon on an expedition, greeted them cheerfully,
stopped and said: “I’m awfully sorry I gave you away the other day. But
I never saw your mother till I’d done it.”

“Don’t mention it,” said the Terror with cold graciousness.

“So you ought to be,” said Erebus.

“It’s a pity you should lose your fishing. If I’d known how good you
both were at it, I should have given you leave when I got your letter,”
said Sir James hypocritically. “But I was misinformed about you.”

“It’s worse that mother should lose the trout. She does hate butcher’s
meat so, and it is so difficult to get her to eat properly,” said
Erebus in a somewhat mollified tone.

“It’s like that, is it?” said Sir James quickly; and an expression of
deep concern filled his face.

“Yes, and she did eat those trout,” said Erebus plaintively.

Sir James knitted his brow in frowning thought; and the Twins watched
him with little hope in their faces. Of a sudden his brow grew smooth;
and he said:

“Look here: you mayn’t fish my water; but there’s no reason why you
shouldn’t fish Glazebrook’s. _I_ think that a man who nets his water
loses all rights.”

“Yes, he does,” said the Terror firmly.

“Well, with one watching while the other fishes, it ought to be safe
enough; and I’ll stand the racket if you get prosecuted and fined. I
want to take it out of that fellow Glazebrook—he’s not a sportsman.”

The Terror’s face had brightened; but he said: “But how should we
account for the fish we took home?”

“You can reckon them presents from me. They would be—practically—if I’m
going to pay the fines,” said Sir James.

The eyes of both the Twins danced: this was a fashion of dealing
tenderly with exactitude which appealed to them. The Terror himself
could not have been more tender with it.

“That’s a ripping idea!” said Erebus in a tone of the warmest approval.

The peace was thus concluded.

Having thus abated their hostility, Sir James spared no pains to win
their good will. He gave the Terror a rook-rifle and Erebus boxes of
chocolate. If he chanced on them when motoring in the afternoon he
would carry them off, bicycles and all, in his car and regale them with
sumptuous teas at the Grange; and at Colet House he entertained them
with stories of the African forest which thrilled Mrs. Dangerfield even
more than they thrilled them. But he won their hearts most by his
sympathy with them in the matter of their mother’s appetite, and by
joining them in little plots to obtain delicacies for her.

Having discovered how grateful it was to her, he lost no opportunity of
taking the short cut to her heart by praising them. He laid himself out
to be useful to her, to entertain and amuse her, trying to make for
himself as large as possible a place in her life. She was not long
discovering that he was in love with her; and the discovery came as a
very pleasant shock. None of the neighbors, much less Captain Baster,
who, during her stay at Colet House, had asked her to marry them, had
attracted her so strongly as did Sir James. Even as her delicacy made
the strongest appeal to his vigorous robustness, so his vigorous
robustness made the strongest appeal to her delicacy.

But Little Deeping is a censorious place; and its gossips are the
keener for having so few chances of plying their active tongues. When
no less than four ladies had on four several occasions met Sir James
and Mrs. Dangerfield walking together along the lanes, those tongues
began to wag.

Then old Mrs. Blenkinsop, the childless widow of a Common Councilman of
London, one morning met the Twins in the village. They greeted her
politely and made to escape. But she was in the mood, her most constant
mood, to babble. She stopped them, and with a knowing air, and even
more offensive smile, said:

“So, young people, we’re going to hear the sound of wedding bells very
soon in Little Deeping, are we?”

Erebus merely scowled at her, for more than once she had talked about
them; but the Terror, in a tone of somewhat perfunctory politeness,
said:

“Are we?”

“I should have thought you would have known all about it,” she said
with a cackling little giggle. “Mind you tell me as soon as you’re
told: I want to be one of the first to congratulate your dear mother.”

“What do you mean?” snapped the Terror with a disconcerting suddenness;
and his eyes shone very bright and threatening in a steady glare into
her own.

“Oh, nothing—nothing!” cried Mrs. Blenkinsop, flustered by his
sternness. “Only seeing Sir James so much with your mother—But
there—there’s probably nothing in it—the Morgans always were rovers—one
foot at sea and one on shore—I dare say he’ll be in the middle of
Africa before the week is out. Good morning—good morning.”

With that she sprang, more lightly than she had sprung for years, into
the grocer’s shop.

The Twins looked after her with uneasy eyes, frowning. Then Erebus
said: “Silly old idiot!”

The Terror said nothing; he walked on frowning. At last he broke out:
“This won’t do! We can’t have these old idiots gossiping about Mum. And
it’s a beastly nuisance: Sir James was making things so much more
cheerful for her.”

“But you don’t think there’s anything in what the old cat said? It
would be perfectly horrid to have a stepfather!” cried Erebus in a
panic.

The Terror walked on, frowning in deep thought.

“_Do_ you think there’s anything in it?” cried Erebus.

“I dare say there is. Sir James is always about with Mum; and he’s
always very civil to us—people aren’t generally,” said the Terror.

“Oh, but we must stop it! We must stop it at once!” cried Erebus.

“Why must we?”

“It would be perfectly beastly having a step-father, I tell you!” cried
Erebus fiercely.

“It isn’t altogether what we like—there’s Mum,” said the Terror. “She
does have a rotten time of it—always being hard up and never going
anywhere. And, after all, we shouldn’t mind Sir James when we got used
to him.”

“But we should! And look how we stopped the Cruncher!”

“Sir James isn’t like the Cruncher—at all,” said the Terror.

“All stepfathers are alike; and they’re beastly!” cried Erebus.

“Now, it’s no good your getting yourself obstinate about it,” said the
Terror firmly. “That won’t be of any use at all, if they’ve made up
their minds. But what’s bothering me is what that old cat meant by
saying that the Morgans were rovers.”

Erebus’ frown deepened as she knitted her brow over the cryptic
utterance of Mrs. Blenkinsop. Then she said in a tone of considerable
relief:

“She must have meant that he wasn’t really in earnest about marrying
Mum.”

“Yes, that’s what she did mean,” growled the Terror. “And she’ll go
about telling everybody that he’s only fooling.”

“But I don’t think he is. I don’t think he would,” said Erebus quickly.

“No more do I,” said the Terror.

They walked nearly fifty yards in silence. Then the Terror’s face
cleared and brightened; and he said cheerfully:

“I know the thing to do! I’ll go and ask him his intentions. That’s
what people said old Hawley ought to have done when the Cut—you know:
that fellow from Rowington—was fooling about with Miss Hawley.”

“All right, we’ll go and ask him,” said Erebus with equal cheerfulness.

“No, no, you can’t go. I must go alone,” said the Terror quickly. “It’s
the kind of thing the men of the family always do—people said so about
Miss Hawley—and I’m the only man of the family about. If Uncle Maurice
were in London and not in Vienna, we might send for him to do it.”

Erebus burst into bitter complaint. She alleged that the restrictions
which were applied to the ordinary girl should by no means be applied
to her, since she was not ordinary; that since they cooperated in
everything else they ought to cooperate in this; that he was much more
successful in those exploits in which they did cooperate, than in those
which he performed alone.

“It’s no good talking like that: it isn’t the thing to do,” said the
Terror with very cold severity. “You know what Mrs. Morton said about
Miss Hawley and the Cut—that the men of the family did it.”

“You’re only a boy; and I’m as old as you!” snapped Erebus.

“Well, when there isn’t a man to do a thing, a boy does it. So it’s no
use you’re making a fuss,” said the Terror in a tone of finality.

Erebus protested that the upshot of his going alone would be that Sir
James would presently be their detested stepfather; but he went alone,
early in the afternoon.

He was now on such familiar terms at the Grange that Mawley took him
straight to the smoking-room, where his master was smoking a cigar over
his after-lunch coffee. Sir James welcomed him warmly, for he was
beginning to learn that the Terror was quite good company, in the
country, and poured him out a cup of coffee.

The Terror put sugar and cream into it and forthwith, since a simple
matter of this kind did not seem to him to call for the exercise of his
usual diplomacy, said with firm directness: “I’ve come to ask your
intentions, sir.”

“My intentions?” said Sir James, not taking him.

“Yes. You see some of the old cats who live about here are saying that
you’re only fooling,” said the Terror.

“The deuce they are!” cried Sir James sharply with a sudden and angry
comprehension.

“Yes. So of course the thing to do was to ask your intentions,” said
the Terror firmly.

“Of course—of course,” said Sir James.

He looked at the Terror; and in spite of his anger his eyes twinkled.
Then he added gravely: “My intentions are not only extremely serious
but they’re extremely immediate. I’d marry your mother to-morrow if
she’d let me.”

“That’s all right,” said the Terror with a faint sigh of relief. “Of
course I knew you were all right. Only, it was the thing to do, with
these silly old idiots talking.”

“Quite so—quite so,” said Sir James.

There was a pause; and Sir James looked again at the Terror tranquilly
drinking his coffee, in a somewhat appealing fashion, for he had been
suffering badly from all the doubts and fears of the lover; and the
Terror’s serenity was soothing.

Then with a sudden craving for comfort and reassurance, he said: “Do
you think your mother would marry me?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea; women are so funny,” said the Terror
with a sage air.

Sir James pulled at his mustache. Then the compulsion to have some
one’s opinion of his chances, even if it was only a small boy’s, came
on him strongly; and he said:

“I wish I knew what to do. As it is we’re very good friends; and if I
asked her to marry me, I might spoil that.”

The Terror considered the point for a minute or two; then he said: “I
don’t think you would. Mum’s very sensible, though she is so pretty.”

Sir James frowned deeply in his utter perplexity; then he said: “I’ll
risk it!”

He rang the bell and ordered his car. He talked to the Terror jerkily
and somewhat incoherently till it came; and the Terror observed his
perturbation with considerable interest. It seemed to him very curious
in a hard-bitten hunter of big game. They started and in the two level
miles to Little Deeping Sir James changed his car’s speeds nine times.

As they came very slowly up to Colet House, the Terror said with an air
of detachment: “I should think, you know, Mum could be rushed.”

He had definitely made up his mind that it would be a good thing for
her.

“If I only could!” said Sir James in a tone of feverish doubt.

Mrs. Dangerfield was mending a rent in a frock of Erebus when he
entered the drawing-room; and at the first glance she knew, with a
thrill half of pleasure, half of apprehension, why he had come.

At the sight of her Sir James felt his tremulous courage oozing out of
him; but with what was left of it he blurted out desperately:

“Look here, Anne, dear, I want you to marry me!”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Dangerfield, rising quickly.

“Yes, I want it more than ever I wanted anything in my life!”

Mrs. Dangerfield’s face was one flush; and she cried: “B-b-but it’s out
of the question. I—I’m old enough to be your mother!”

“Now how?—I’m three years and seven months older than you,” said Sir
James, taken aback.

“I shall be an old woman while you’re still quite young!” she
protested.

“You won’t ever be old! You’re not the kind!” cried Sir James with some
heat; and then with sudden understanding: “If that’s your only reason,
why, that settles it!”

With that he picked her up and kissed her four times.

When he set her down and held her at arm’s length, gazing at her with
devouring eyes, she gasped somewhat faintly: “Oh, James, you are—ever
so much more—impetuous—than I thought. You gave me—no time.”

“Thank goodness, I took the Terror’s tip!” said Sir James.

THE END