‘i’ve thought of a splendid game for this afternoon,’ announced micky, as the children were finishing dinner. ‘we’ll find diamond jubilee, and go to the feudal castle to play it, for it’s a feudal castle game. diamond jubilee is to be an awfully ragged, dirty pilgrim come back from the crusades, and kitty and i will be quite rude to him at first; but when the lady of the castle—that’s emmeline—sees him (you will come, won’t you, emmeline?), you’ll fling your arms round his neck and cry, “here is my long lost son!” for your mother’s heart will tell you directly who he is.’
‘oh, micky! i think that’s a silly game,’ said emmeline. ‘diamond jubilee really isn’t clean enough for anyone to fling their arms around his neck. i hope you didn’t get very close to him in the summer-house last night?’ she added anxiously.
‘oh no! he rolled up in one blanket and i rolled up in the other,’ micky assured her. ‘but how fussy you are getting! i think it’s horrid of[136] you first to adopt him and then not want us to play with him, just because he’s rather dirty.’
‘don’t be so silly and exaggerating, micky. i only didn’t want you to play at that sort of game. i think it will be a very good plan if you take diamond jubilee to the feudal castle and play at something sensible there, for it may get him used to the place before to-night.’
‘but i don’t want to play at something sensible,’ persisted micky. ‘i want to play at what i said.’
‘i know what!’ broke in kitty, who was always a peacemaker. ‘emmeline can be a stepmother; then she won’t have to fling her arms round his neck.’
‘my game was better,’ grumbled micky, ‘but i suppose if emmeline won’t be the mother, she’ll have to be the stepmother.’
‘i don’t know whether i shall be able to be anything,’ said emmeline. ‘you see, i want to get the blankets to the feudal castle this afternoon, because i think diamond jubilee might settle down there if once his blankets were there, and of course i shall have to wait and watch for a chance of getting them out when nobody’s looking.’
‘shall kitty and i stop and help you?’ asked micky eagerly.
real actual plotting, if only about blankets, was[137] more fun than the most splendid story-game ever invented.
‘oh, i can manage quite well by myself,’ said emmeline; ‘and you would find it very dull waiting, perhaps ever so long, for a chance of getting the blankets out of the kennel. besides, what i really want you to do is to keep diamond jubilee safe amused and out of the garden, and if you can get him to like the feudal castle it’ll be the greatest help of all. you see, he simply must sleep there alone to-night. it would be too much of a risk for you to sleep out with him in the summer-house again.’
‘don’t mean to,’ said micky cheerfully; ‘the summer-house is very nice for an adventure, but not for always.’ as a matter of fact, it had been so extremely hard and cold that it had only been by dint of pretending that he was in prison that micky had enjoyed it even as an adventure.
to be able to play at a story-game, and to feel at the same time that they were being ‘the greatest help of all’ in the diamond jubilee secret, was delightful to the twins; so they and punch trotted out of the garden to look for him as soon as ever dinner was over; whilst emmeline reached down ‘the wide wide world’ from its place in the bookshelf, and took it out with her to the wooden seat on the back lawn, where she meant to wait and watch for the coast to be clear.
[138]
it was anything but clear for the moment, for mr. brown was doing something to one of the flower-beds at one end of the lawn, and cook’s face kept appearing at the scullery window, but emmeline settled herself down to wait very contentedly. ‘the wide wide world’ was a book of which she never grew tired, and a quiet, peaceful time for reading it was far more to her taste than an afternoon with diamond jubilee. try as she would, she could not feel much craving for the company of her adopted son.
ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour passed. emmeline looked up from her story. cook had disappeared from the scullery window—probably she had gone upstairs to dress for the afternoon—but that tiresome mr. brown was still attending to his flower-bed. clearly it was not yet the moment for making her raid, and with a sigh, half of disappointment, half of relief, emmeline relapsed into her tale.
she had been reading for longer than she realised, when she was startled by the crunching of footsteps on the gravel, and turning her head, saw kitty and punch coming up the path.
‘haven’t you got them out yet?’ asked kitty in a disappointed voice as she came close up to emmeline.
‘how can i, with mr. brown always about? there—i do believe he has finished at last! oh[139] no, he’s only going to that other bed!’ exclaimed emmeline, as mr. brown stopped at the flower-bed just beneath the schoolroom window. ‘what have you come back for?’ she added. ‘it’s not nearly tea-time yet.’
‘diamond jubilee said the monkey-nuts had made him so thirsty he must have a drink of water,’ explained kitty, ‘so i thought i’d see if i couldn’t take him some in the tooth-glass. i shall have to wait till mr. brown’s gone, though,’ and she flung herself down on the lawn by emmeline’s side. ‘we met diamond jubilee just outside the garden,’ she continued, ‘and we’ve been having a lovely time—at least, the last part of it was lovely. the first part he wasn’t well (do you know, emmeline, i’m afraid monkey-nuts don’t agree with him; he calls them “blooming,” and he’d have thrown what’s left of them away, only micky wouldn’t let him); but after he got well again we took him to the feudal castle, which he doesn’t seem to mind when we’re there, and he told us all sorts of exciting things about green ginger land. it sounds lovely, and like a fairy-story, doesn’t it? but it’s really the place where diamond jubilee lived with mother grimes and lots of other interesting people.’
‘how very naughty of him to grumble at his food!’ broke in emmeline, who had not been paying much attention to the last part of kitty’s[140] remarks. ‘i expect it was all those unripe apples he stole that really disagreed with him, not the monkey-nuts. he certainly is an extremely trying boy.’
‘come you here, punch!’ mr. brown suddenly shouted in a very angry voice, causing emmeline to jump violently, and punch, who had been happily employed in smelling about for imaginary rats, to spring on to her knee, and begin wagging his tail in a frightened, deprecating way.
‘what’s the matter, mr. brown?’ called out kitty, bristling up directly. ‘punch has been as good as gold—haven’t you, darling?’ and she kissed one of his tan cheeks.
mr. brown was striding towards them with a wrathful face. ‘good as gold, have he?’ he echoed, indignantly. ‘i’ll teach him to be as good as gold! trolloping over the flower-beds, and breaking my best chrysanth’ums! a good-as-gold beating’s what he deserves.’
‘no, he doesn’t! you shan’t touch him, mr. brown, you cruel, wicked man!’ screamed kitty, while punch raised his shrill, exasperating alarm-bark, and emmeline bent over him protectingly.
‘i shan’t have a flower left in the garden soon,’ continued the angry mr. brown, ‘and i reckoned to have taken this one to the show!’
‘which one was it?’ asked emmeline, uneasily. ‘oh, do be quiet, punch!’
[141]
‘that real fine one just underneath the scullery window,’ was the answer. ‘there’s his footmarks all over the bed, so i know it must have been him done it. just you give him up to me, and i’ll teach him a lesson. it ain’t the first time he’ve done it, not by a long way.’
‘no, no—you shan’t!’ cried emmeline, terrified for the dog, and grasping him more tightly, while kitty burst into tears, and punch himself barked more shrilly than ever.
‘why, whatever’s the matter?’ called out cook, suddenly appearing at the back-yard door.
never had the sight of her round, good-natured face been so welcome. emmeline gasped an ‘oh!’ of relief, and kitty almost flew up the path to meet her. ‘cook,’ she implored, ‘you won’t let mr. brown beat punch, will you?’
‘what do you want to beat the poor creature for?’ demanded cook, who could always be depended on to take the part of any animal in trouble, more especially against mr. brown, with whom she was never very good friends. ‘he haven’t done no harm to nobody that i can see.’
‘oh, in course not! breaking my show chrysanth’um is no harm at all, is it?’ asked mr. brown, which he meant for crushing sarcasm.
‘well, and how do you know it was him done it? that might have been the wind,’ retorted[142] cook, who privately suspected master micky, but would not have said so for the world.
‘there was his footmarks all over the bed,’ said mr. brown. ‘oh, he done it sure enough, and he deserve a good beating sure enough.’
‘well, you shan’t give him one,’ said cook, defiantly, as she bent down and lifted punch from emmeline’s knee, ‘not without you want me to write and complain to miss bolton, who’d never let you beat him for a thing like that, which you know as well as i do. he’s going to the back-yard now, so he won’t do no more harm to your chrysanth’ums, and don’t you do no harm to him.’ and with that she marched off, carrying punch, who was barking vehemently from his safe place of vantage in her arms.
‘well, you’ll have to keep him chained up there then,’ called mr. brown after them as a parting shot, ‘for if i catch him about my garden you’ll know what he can expect.’
‘oh, mr. brown!’ cried kitty, dismayed at the vista of endless captivity which seemed to be opening before poor punch, ‘you don’t mean to say you’ll never let him run about the garden again?’
of course mr. brown did not seriously mean any such thing, but it pleased him to walk away grimly, muttering terrible threats about what he would do to punch if he caught him in the garden[143] again, and poor kitty, who fully believed all he said, burst into fresh tears. ‘oh, what shall we do?’ she sobbed. ‘punch’ll die of grief, if he has to be chained up for always!’
‘oh, but aunt grace would never stand that,’ said emmeline, trying to comfort kitty, though she herself felt very unhappy, ‘and, of course, it’s she who will really have to settle. it’s rubbish for mr. brown to talk as if this was his garden.’
‘i can’t help being afraid,’ she went on uneasily, ‘that it may have been micky who broke that chrysanthemum last night, when he jumped down from the schoolroom window. you see it was exactly underneath the schoolroom window—just where he would jump. i wonder mr. brown didn’t notice his footsteps, but i suppose the rain in the night must have washed them out, and, of course, the ones he made this morning when he was swarming up the water-pipe would be a little further along.’
‘if it was micky it makes it all the harder on poor darling punch,’ said kitty sorrowfully.
‘well, we can’t be sure, you know, said emmeline. ‘anyhow, it’s no good crying over it now—it isn’t as if punch had been whipped. there’s mr. brown going round to the front of the house! you’d better run and get diamond jubilee’s water, and take it out to him while you can, and i’ll see if i can get out the blankets.’
[144]
this diverted kitty’s attention from punch’s wrongs, and she ran into the house wiping her eyes on her overall sleeve. emmeline made her way to the yard, but found cook standing there trying to comfort poor punch, who had just been chained up, and who looked as though he did not at all understand or like having to go to bed so early.
‘so you’ve come to talk to the poor animal,’ remarked cook. ‘i reckon it’s best to chain him up for a bit, or he’d be running out into the garden and getting into mr. brown’s way, but it do seem hard.’
‘do you think he would really beat him?’ asked emmeline, trying to conceal the fact that she was rather dismayed at finding anybody there.
‘well, i can’t say,’ was the answer; ‘he haven’t no love for dumb creatures, that’s certain, though he isn’t what you could call a cruel man. anyway, it won’t do no harm to keep punch out of his way for a little.’
emmeline talked to cook and punch for a minute or two longer, and then went back into the garden. unfortunately mr. brown, too, had returned by this time, so it was plainly hopeless to think of taking out the blankets yet, even when cook left the yard. meanwhile punch, left alone in the dull back-yard, was feeling himself a very[145] much injured dog. he proclaimed the fact to the world by a series of yelping barks, but he was an animal of a philosophic turn of mind, so it presently struck him that, since he was chained up at this untimely hour, he might as well retire into his kennel and go to sleep comfortably in the snug dark corner at the very back.
ah! that special corner was already occupied by something woolly and unfamiliar—something which crowded punch uncomfortably, something which was, in fact, nothing more nor less than one of the spare room blankets! it had fallen a little from the tumbled heap in which micky had pushed it, so that it now took up a good deal more room than it had done in the morning.
if punch had been in a sleepier or lazier mood he might have managed to make it into a cosy nest for himself. as it was, he chose to pretend that it was a giant white rat, and to treat it accordingly. it was really an ideal game for a bored fox-terrier—from the bored fox-terrier’s own point of view, that is.
unfortunately, jane’s point of view was a different one, and when she presently came into the back-yard to hang up some odds and ends that she had been washing, and found punch worrying a great heap of defenceless blanket which was protruding from his kennel, her horror and indignation[146] knew no bounds. she could hardly believe her own eyes indeed, till she had come close up to the kennel and bent down to examine punch’s plaything. yes, it really was a blanket!
‘it’s them children again!’ she cried wrathfully. ‘why, bless me’—with a voice growing shriller and shriller—‘bless me, if it isn’t one of them new blankets we got special for the spare room!’
cook and alice came running out into the yard to see what was the matter, and punch, who had left off worrying the blanket, began wagging his tail nervously. he was not used to holding such a levée, and felt more embarrassed than gratified at all the attention which was being paid him.
‘well, i never!’ exclaimed cook, as jane gave such a violent tug to that part of the blanket which was lying outside the kennel that the rest of it also emerged. ‘however on earth did it get there?’
‘it’s them wicked children, of course,’ said jane, angrily. ‘and if i don’t make them sorry for it, my name isn’t jane martin!’
‘oh, we can trust you for that!’ remarked cook. ‘but i must say this do beat everything. cheer up, punch, old boy! nobody’s going to hurt you.’ she was just bending down to pat him reassuringly, when she uttered a sudden exclamation: ‘why, i do believe there’s another[147] of them! there! come you out, punch. yes, there really is.’
jane paused in the vicious shaking she was giving the first blanket, and stared at cook in a startled way. ‘another what?’ she demanded. ‘you don’t mean to say another dog?’ jane hated dogs.
cook laughed with unnecessary heartiness. ‘no, another blanket,’ she exclaimed between her peals of mirth. ‘here, get away, punch, and let me look.’ she undid the animal’s chain, and then, as he bounded about in great delight, she poked first a head and then a long arm into the kennel, whence she presently came out red, panting, and triumphantly holding up a second blanket!
‘well!’ gasped jane, and stopped short, unable for the moment to find words strong enough to express her feelings.
then alice gave a nervous giggle, and jane turned round on her sharply.
‘what business have you here, miss, laughing at your betters?’ she demanded angrily. ‘i’ll teach you——’
what she meant to teach alice never appeared, for just at that moment the yard-door was flung violently open, and in rushed micky, hot, breathless, and dirty, with kitty following close on his heels.
‘it was i who broke the chrysanthemum, not[148] punch,’ panted micky. ‘unchain him—oh, i see he is unchained! that’s all right.’
‘all right, is it, master micky?’ cried jane, shrilly. ‘this’—and she held up her blanket—‘this isn’t what i call all right, nor that either!’ and she pointed to the other blanket.
kitty looked thoroughly scared, and for a fraction of a second even micky seemed rather taken aback, but he recovered himself instantly.
‘i’m so sorry you don’t like the blankets,’ he remarked politely. ‘aunt grace will be disappointed, too, for i’m sure she meant to get nice ones for the spare room.’
‘well, of all the impudent children!’ ejaculated the outraged jane.
‘why,’ cried emmeline, who came hurrying in to see what was going on, ‘what’s the mat——’ she broke off suddenly, and turned quite pale as she caught sight of the blankets. everything would be found out now!
‘the matter is, miss emmeline,’ said jane, ‘that the new spare room blankets have just been found in a disgusting, dirty dog-kennel.’ (‘well, i gave it a wash-out last week, so it can’t be so bad as all that,’ murmured cook in a low voice.) ‘put there, i’m very much afraid, by master micky,’ went on jane, disregarding the interruption, and fixing micky with an awful glare.
[149]
‘yes, i put them there myself this morning,’ said micky.
‘you did, did you?’ cried jane, dropping her tragic tone and relapsing into shrillness. ‘and may i make so bold as to ask what you put them there for?’
emmeline was trembling so much that she had to steady herself against the door-post. what would micky say?
‘oh, i thought it would be a nice safe place to keep them in,’ answered micky, with great serenity.
this was altogether too much for jane.
‘you’re the naughtiest, most mis-chiev-ous child that ever i saw!’ she exclaimed, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him till his teeth chattered. ‘it’s downright pure mischiefulness—that’s what it is, and i’ll make you sorry for it, that i will! you’ll come off to bed this very moment.’
kitty burst into a howl of sympathy. to be sent to bed was the most terrible punishment known to the little boltons.
‘oh, jane, give him just one more trial,’ she wailed. ‘he’ll never do it again—w-will you, micky?’
‘never mind, kitty,’ said micky, assuming an air of saintly resignation which maddened jane. ‘i’ll try to bear it, and she’ll be sorry one day.’
‘bear it or not, you’ll come to bed this instant!’ said jane, seizing hold of his sailor-collar and marching him off.
just as they reached the door into the kitchen, she paused to say to alice: ‘you’d better hang them blankets upon the line. i’ll not have them in the house again till they have been well washed, after being stuffed up with that dirty dog.’
‘there’s many a christian been a longer time without a bath than punch,’ remarked cook; whereupon micky turned his head and gave emmeline as deliberate a wink as jane allowed him time for. luckily neither jane nor cook seemed to notice the wink, or if they did, they merely took it for one more sign of the outrageous ‘mischiefulness,’ which was supposed to account for the blankets being found in the kennel at all.
emmeline began to breathe freely again when once jane and micky had disappeared into the house. it had been a dreadful five minutes, but they seemed to have come out of the scrape better than could have been expected.
