The angel child looked at the letter from Buda-Pesth with lively interest, for she knew that it came from her friend and patroness Esmeralda, the dancer, who was engaged in a triumphant tour of the continent of Europe. She put it on the top of the pile of letters, mostly bills, which had come for her employer, the Honourable John Ruffin, set the pile beside his plate, and returned to the preparation of his breakfast.
She looked full young to hold the post of house-keeper to a barrister of the Inner Temple, for she was not yet thirteen; but there was an uncommonly capable intentness in her deep blue eyes as she watched the bacon, sizzling on the grill, for the right moment to turn the rashers. She never missed it. Now and again those deep blue eyes sparkled at the thought that the Honourable John Ruffin would presently give her news of her brilliant friend.
She heard him come out of his bedroom, and at once dished up his bacon, and carried it into his sitting-room. She found him already reading the letter, and saw that it was giving him no pleasure. His lips were set in a thin line; there was a frown on his brow and an angry gleam in his grey eyes. She knew that of all the emotions which moved him, anger was the rarest; indeed she could only remember having once seen him angry: on the occasion on which he had smitten Mr. Montague Fitzgerald on the head when that shining moneylender was trying to force from her the key of his chambers; and she wondered what had been happening to the Esmeralda to annoy him. She was too loyal to suppose that anything that the Esmeralda had herself done could be annoying him.
He ate his breakfast more slowly than usual, and with a brooding air. His eyes never once, as was their custom, rested with warm appreciation on Pollyooly's beautiful face, set in its aureole of red hair; he did not enliven his meal by talking to her about the affairs of the moment. She respected his musing, and waited on him in silence. She had cleared away the breakfast tray and was folding the table-cloth when, at last, he broke his thoughtful silence.
There's nothing for it: I must go to Buda-Pesth, he said with a resolute air.
There's nothing the matter with the Esmeralda, sir? said Pollyooly with quick anxiety.
There's something very much the matter with the Esmeralda—a Moldo-Wallachian, said the Honourable John Ruffin with stern coldness.
Is it an illness, sir? said Pollyooly yet more anxiously.
No; it's a nobleman, said the Honourable John Ruffin with even colder sternness.
Pollyooly pondered the matter for a few seconds; then she said: "Is he—is he persecuting her, sir, like Senor Perez did when I was dancing with her in 'Titania's Awakening'?"
It ought to be a persecution; but I fear it isn't, said the Honourable John Ruffin grimly. "I gather from this letter that she is regarding his attentions, which, I am sure, consist chiefly of fulsome flattery and uncouth gifts, with positive approbation."
Pollyooly pondered this information also; then she said:
Is she going to marry him, sir?
She is not! said the Honourable John Ruffin in a tone of the deepest conviction but rather loudly.
Pollyooly looked at him and waited for further information to throw light on his manifest disturbance of spirit.
He drummed a tattoo on the bare table with his fingers, frowning the while; then he said:
Constancy to the ideal, though perhaps out of place in a man, is alike woman's privilege and her duty. I should be sorry—indeed I should be deeply shocked if the Esmeralda were to fail in that duty.
Yes, sir, said Pollyooly in polite sympathy, though she had not the slightest notion what he meant.
Especially since I took such pains to present to her the true ideal—the English ideal, he went on. "Whereas this Moldo-Wallachian—at least that's what I gather from this letter—is merely handsome in that cheap and obvious South-European way—that is to say he has big, black eyes, probably liquid, and a large, probably flowing, moustache. Therefore I go to Buda-Pesth."
Yes, sir, said Pollyooly with the same politeness and in the same ignorance of his reason for going.
I shall wire to her to-day—to give her pause—and to-morrow I shall start. He paused, looking at her thoughtfully for a moment, then went on: "I should like to take you with me, for I know how helpful you can be in the matter of these insolent and infatuated foreigners. But Buda-Pesth is too far away. And the question is what I am going to do with you while I'm away."
We can stay here all right, sir—the Lump and me, said Pollyooly quickly, with a note of surprise in her voice.
Her little brother, Roger, who lived with her in the airy attic above the Honourable John Ruffin's chambers, had acquired the name of "The Lump" from his admirable placidity.
I don't like the idea of your doing that, he said, shaking his head and frowning. "I don't know how long I may be away—the affirmation of the ideal is sometimes a lengthy process. Of course the Temple is a quiet place; but I don't like to leave two small children alone in it for a fortnight, or three weeks. It isn't as if Mr. Gedge-Tomkins were at home. If he were at hand—just across the landing, it would be a very different matter."
But I'm sure we should be all right, sir, said Pollyooly with entire confidence.
Oh, I'm bound to say that if any child in the world could take care of herself and a little brother, it's you, he said handsomely. "But I want to devote all my energies to the affirmation of the ideal; and I must not be troubled by anxiety about you. I shall have to dispose of you safely somehow."
With that he rose, lighted a cigar, and presently sallied forth into the world. The matter of learning the quickest way to Buda-Pesth and procuring a ticket for the morrow took him little more than half an hour. Then the matter of disposing safely of Pollyooly and the Lump during his absence rose again to his mind and he walked along pondering it. Presently there came to him a happy thought: there was their common friend, Hilary Vance, an artist who had employed Pollyooly as his model for a set of stories for The Blue Magazine. Hilary Vance was devoted to Pollyooly, and he had a spare bedroom. But for a while the Honourable John Ruffin hesitated; the artist was a man of an uncommonly mercurial, irresponsible temperament. Was it safe to entrust two small children to his care? Then he reflected that Pollyooly was a strong corrective of irresponsibility, and took a taxicab to Chelsea.
Hilary Vance, very broad, very thick, very round, with a fine, rebellious mop of tow-coloured hair, which had fallen forward so as nearly to hide his big, simple eyes, opened the door to him. At the sight of his visitor a spacious round smile spread over his spacious face; and he welcomed him with an effusive enthusiasm.
At his christening the good fairy had given to the Honourable John Ruffin a very lively interest in his fellow-creatures and a considerable power of observation with which to gratify it. He was used to the splendid expansiveness of Hilary Vance; but it seemed to him that to-day he was boiling with an added exuberance; and that curiosity was aroused. He took up a chair and hammered its back on the floor so that the dust fell off the seat, sat down astride it, and, bending forward a little, proceeded to observe the artist with very keen eyes. Hilary Vance, who was very busy, fell to work again, and after his manner, grew grandiloquent about the pleasures of the day before, which he had spent in the country.
Soon it grew clear to the Honourable John Ruffin that his friend had swollen with the insolent happiness so hateful to the Fates, and he said:
You seem to be uncommonly cheerful, Vance. What's the matter?
Hilary Vance looked at him gravely, drew himself upright in his chair, laid down his pencil, and said in a tone of solemnity calculated to awaken the deepest respect and awe:
Ruffin, I have found a woman—a WOMAN!
The quality of the Honourable John Ruffin's gaze changed; his eyes rested on the face of his friend with a caressing, almost cherishing, delight.
Isn't it becoming rather a habit? he said blandly.
I don't know what you mean, said Hilary Vance with splendid dignity. "But this is different. This is a WOMAN!"
His face filled with an expression of the finest beatitude.
They so often are, said the Honourable John Ruffin. "Does James know about her?"
At the sound of the name of the mentor and friend who had rescued him from so many difficulties, something of guilt mingled with the beatitude on Hilary Vance's face, and he said in a less assured tone:
James is in Scotland.
The Honourable John Ruffin sprang from his chair with a briskness which made Hilary Vance himself jump, and cried in a tone of the liveliest commiseration and dismay:
Good Heavens! Then you're lost—lost!
What do you mean? said Hilary Vance quite sharply.
I mean that your case is hopeless, said the Honourable John Ruffin in a less excited tone. "James is in Scotland; I'm off to Buda-Pesth; and you have found a WOMAN—probably THE WOMAN."
I don't know what you mean, said Hilary Vance, frowning.
That's the worst of it! That's why it's so hopeless! said the Honourable John Ruffin in a tone of deep depression.
What do you mean? cried Hilary Vance in sudden bellow.
Good-bye, old chap; good-bye, said the Honourable John Ruffin in the most mournful tone and with the most mournful air. "I can not save you. I've got to go to Buda-Pesth." He walked half-way to the door, turned sharply on his heel, clapped his hand to his head with the most dramatic gesture, and cried: "Stay! I'll wire to James!"
I'm damned if you do! bellowed Hilary Vance.
I must! I must! cried the Honourable John Ruffin, still dramatic.
You don't know his address, thank goodness! growled Hilary Vance triumphantly. "And you won't get it from me."
I shan't? Then it's hopeless indeed, said the Honourable John Ruffin with a gesture of despair. He stood and seemed to plunge into deep reflection, while Hilary Vance scowled an immense scowl at him.
The Honourable John Ruffin allowed a faint air of hope to lighten his gloom; then he said:
There's a chance—there's yet a chance!
I don't want any chance! cried Hilary Vance stormily. "You can jolly well mind your own business and leave me alone. I can look after myself without any help from you—or James either."
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first madden young, said the Honourable John Ruffin sadly. "But there's always Pollyooly; she may save you yet. I came to suggest that while I'm away in Buda-Pesth you should let Pollyooly and the Lump occupy that spare bedroom of yours. I don't like leaving them alone in the Temple; and I thought that you might like to have them here for a while, though I fear Pollyooly will clean the place." He looked round the studio gloomily. "But you can stand that for once, I expect," he went on more cheerfully. "At any rate it would be worth your while, because you'd learn what grilled bacon really is."
At the mention of the name of Pollyooly the scowl on Hilary Vance's face began to smooth out; as the Honourable John Ruffin developed his suggestion it slowly disappeared.
Oh, yes; I'll put them up. I shall be delighted to, he said eagerly. "Pollyooly gives more delight to my eye than any one I know. And there are so few people in town, and I'm lonely at times. I wish I liked bacon, since she is so good at grilling it; but I don't."
The Honourable John Ruffin came several steps down the room wearing an air of the wildest amazement:
You don't like bacon? he cried in astounded tones. "That explains everything. I've always wondered about you. Now I know. You are one of those whom the gods love; and I can't conceive why you didn't die younger."
I don't know what you mean, said Hilary Vance, bristling and scowling again.
You don't? Well, it doesn't matter. But I'm really very much obliged to you for relieving me of all anxiety about those children.
They discussed the hour at which Pollyooly and the Lump should come, and then the Honourable John Ruffin held out his hand.
But Hilary Vance rose and came to the front door with him. On the threshold he coughed gently and said:
I should like you to see Flossie.
Flossie? said the Honourable John Ruffin. "Ah—the WOMAN." He looked at Hilary Vance very earnestly. "Yes, I see—I see—of course her name would be Flossie." Then he added sternly:
No; if I saw her James might accuse me of having encouraged you. He would, in fact. He always does.
She's only at the florist's just at the end of the street, said Hilary Vance in a persuasive tone.
She would be, said the Honourable John Ruffin in a tone of extraordinary patience. "I don't know why it is that the WOMAN is so often at a florist's at the end of the street. It seems to be one of nature's strange whims." His face grew very gloomy again and in a very sad tone he added:
Good-bye, poor old chap; good-bye!
He shook hands firmly with his puzzled friend and started briskly up the street. Ten yards up it he paused, turned and called back:
She's everything that's womanly, isn't she?
Yes—everything, cried Hilary Vance with fervour.
The Honourable John Ruffin shook his head sadly and without another word walked briskly on.
Hilary Vance, still looking puzzled, shut the door and went back to his studio. He failed, therefore, to perceive the Honourable John Ruffin enter the florist's shop at the end of the street. He did not come out of it for a quarter of an hour, and then he came out smiling. Seeing that he only brought with him a single rose, he had taken some time over its selection.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
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!”
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.