The "Ogre's" Arrival
IT was a wet day. Lessons had been done; dinner was over, and Miss
Gubbins had told her little charges not to leave the schoolroom. She
had been reading them some of the "Idylls of the King;" and then seeing
them settle down quietly on the old window-seat to talk them over, she
slipped away to write some letters in her room. The servants were all
busy making preparations for their master, as he was now expected back
any day, and Mrs. Peck was in the worst of humours, scolding the maids,
and full of lamentation over the old times that were gone.
The children wisely kept out of her way; even Smythe would have nothing
to do with them, and they were glad to have the safe refuge of the
school room to play in.
Now they were talking with serious eyes, and in earnest tones, about
their beloved King Arthur and his knights.
"I'll be Arthur," said Donald, at last starting up, "and I'm going to
give a banquet to Lancelot and my queen. Come on to the table!"
"It isn't like Arthur's table," objected Claud, "it's a nasty square
thing, and you're not to sit at the head of it, Don, for Arthur never
had a head, he sat equal with his knights!"
"Couldn't we pretend it was round?" suggested Gypsy.
Donald walked round the offending object with frowning brow, then his
face cleared.
"We'll make it round," he said; "we'll cut off the corners!"
Claud capered up and down with delight at this inspiration.
"With our pocket-knives! Come on!"
The table was an old mahogany one, and the boys found it harder work
than they anticipated.
"Will Gubby be angry?" asked Gypsy doubtfully, as she saw the shavings
drop on the carpet.
"She knows we like a round table," said Donald, panting for breath, as
he hacked away with a ruthless hand. "I know what will be better. I
will go and get a saw. There is one in the toolhouse."
Away he ran, and Claud rested from his labour.
"You see," he explained to Gypsy, who was looking on with round eyes,
"it's a very old table, and it's covered with ink, and it always has a
cloth on, so it can't be very wrong to make it round instead of square!"
Donald soon returned, and the destruction of the table was renewed with
fresh vigour. They were in the very midst of it, when the door suddenly
opened, and Victor Thurston stood on the threshold.
So intent had they been in their occupation, that his arrival, and the
consequent bustle in the house, had been entirely unnoticed by them. It
was an unfortunate meeting.
A short, sharp ejaculation started the children. "Good heavens, what
imps of mischief! Where on earth is your governess? Does she allow you
to hack all the furniture to pieces in this fashion?"
Gypsy ran out of the room thoroughly frightened; Claud retreated to the
window-seat; Donald only stood his ground.
"We're only altering our table a little. We want it round. This is our
table, and this is our room. Mrs. Peck said so!"
He looked defiant, as he often did when his conscience told him he
had done wrong; but the hurried entrance of Miss Gubbins, and her
horror-stricken exclamations and apologies cut his excuses short.
"You must have your hands full," said Victor, with a short laugh, as
he tried to greet Miss Gubbins politely, "if this is a specimen of how
they employ themselves in your absence!"
"They have never done such a naughty thing before," said poor Miss
Gubbins. "I cannot think how they could have dared to do it! Come and
tell your brother how sorry you are, Donald, for spoiling his furniture
so!"
"It isn't his table, it's ours," muttered Donald sullenly.
"Look here, youngster," and Victor drew his little brother to him by
the ear. "I have given you a home here, but I don't expect you to ruin
everything in it by wanton mischief. You are old enough to know better.
We'll say no more about it now, but don't let me find you destroying
anything else, or there will be a row. Now make yourself scarce, for, I
want to have a few words with Miss Gubbins."
Donald darted out of the room, and Claud followed him.
Victor looked after them; then with a smile and shrug of his shoulders,
said to Miss Gubbins, "I hope I have not made a mistake in having
them here. I never pretend to understand children; they are unknown
quantities to me, but I wanted to give them a comfortable home, and
I was going to ask you, Miss Gubbins, if you felt it possible to
superintend the household here a little. They say it wants a lady to
make a place homelike, and these old servants have had it all their own
way too long. I thought perhaps I could make some arrangement about
the boys being taught out of the house, if only for a few hours every
day, and Gypsy seems such a baby that she would not require much of
your time. What do you think? Of course it remains with you whether you
would be willing to try it."
Miss Gubbins gazed out of the window with a little frown between her
eyes. She took off her pince-nez, rubbed them nervously, then put them
on, and looked up at the young man before her.
"I will be quite frank with you," she said. "I could not superintend
such a large household and the children's lessons too. If the boys were
taken off my hands, it would be a different matter; but even then,
unless you gave Mrs. Peck notice to leave, I should not like to attempt
it. She does not like our being here, and would never be willing to
take any orders from me."
"Mrs. Peck can go to Jericho!" exclaimed Victor, a little hotly. "She
treated me to a little of her independence directly I came into the
house. I wrote to her to make you thoroughly comfortable; I find she
has banished you to the top of the house, and when I remonstrated, I
met with quiet insolence. One thing I have quite determined, and that
is, to be master here; and the sooner she knows it, and every one else
too, the better it will be for them all!"
Miss Gubbins was silent. Victor went on:
"I shall lead a very quiet life here; there is a good bit of land which
will need my attention, and I shall be in town very often. I want
things to go on smoothly in my absence, and I don't consider Mrs. Peck
will be needed any more. The cook, I find, has been here fifteen years,
and seems a motherly, capable old body, quite anxious to escape Mrs.
Peck's rule. Don't decide hastily, but let me know in a day or two what
you feel about it. I won't keep you any longer now, but I hope you will
dine with me at eight to-night. I conclude the children will be in bed
by that time, and if not, there are plenty of servants here to look
after them."
He strode away, and Miss Gubbins heaved a heavy sigh. "I must do it. I
don't mind the housekeeping. It is these old servants I dread, and I
shall not like to lose control over the boys. I hope they will get on
well with Mr. Thurston. I wish he were not quite so masterful."
And then with another sigh, she settled herself in the window-seat, and
took up one of her beloved poets to soothe her perturbed spirit.
The children meanwhile were discussing the arrival of their brother
with vigour, in a favourite corner of theirs on the stairs. It was a
little square landing overlooking the entrance hall, and was partially
curtained off the wide staircase.
If "Agony's" subjects proved rebellious, she was sure to rush out at
them from this corner after dusk as they passed upstairs, and Gypsy the
heavy damask curtain at all times with awe and dread. She was sitting
now on the floor, her legs well tucked under her, and Donald was
holding forth:
"He's a worse Ogre than ever, and he'll make this house a kind of
prison. He pinched my ear till I could have kicked him! He thinks he is
going to be a kind of lord here."
"Like King Arthur," put in Gypsy; "and we shall be the knights, only we
don't love him like they loved Arthur!"
"I've just made up my mind what I shall do," said Claud, sticking his
hands in his pockets, and his chin in the air; "I shall get one of
those suits of armour off the wall, and dress up in one, and I shall go
to his bedroom at night, and frighten him well!"
"You'd be a wicked boy, then," said Gypsy, who had a fellow feeling
for any one frightened after dark, "and perhaps you'd make him into an
idiot, like the boy that Gubby told us about!"
"We'll do it, Claud," said Donald with enthusiasm, "and we'll do it
to-morrow night!"
"And then he'll take out his pistol and shoot you," pursued Gypsy;
"and it will serve you right, for Arthur's knights never went about
frightening people. Galahad wouldn't do it."
"I'm not going to be Galahad," said Donald, a little impatiently, "he
was too good. I can't be good, so it's no use trying."
"Then you'll never see the Holy Thing."
"Well, you won't, so you needn't think it. You're not a bit better than
we are; you're worse, for you're a girl, and girls are made to be good,
and Jane says you kicked her this morning!"
"Well," said Gypsy, a little abashed, "she tried to shut me into a
cupboard 'to keep me quiet,' she said. I was only just getting a
blacking brush to clean Helen Mary's shoes, and it was only a tiny
little soft kick on her dress! I told her I was sorry after, because
I'm trying hard to find the Holy Thing!"
The boys did not listen to this defence; they were busily engaged in
laying their plans for the next night. They had both a great longing to
get down one of the suits of armour from the wall, and try it on, but
the difficulty was to reach them. However, the next day they pressed
Ned, the stable-boy, into their service, and when Miss Gubbins went
down to dine with their brother, the three conspirators crept to the
darkest corner of the big hall, and with great trouble the smallest
suit of armour was unfastened, and Claud put into it. The weight of it
astonished and alarmed him.
"I'm nearly buried," he said in a muffled voice; "I can't keep it on
long, Don. Let me out!"
"No; you must come upstairs and hide in his bedroom, and wait till he
comes to bed!"
"That will be hours and hours; it's so heavy; I can't wait all that
time!"
After further consideration, they decided that Claud should hide in
"Agony's" corner on the stairs, and pounce out upon his victim as he
came upstairs. It was a great labour to help him up there, but that
was accomplished at last, and then Donald ran up to tell Gypsy that
everything was in readiness. The audacity of the exploit awed her, but
though she felt in her small heart that trouble would follow, she could
not resist creeping out of bed and down the stairs to see Claud in his
armour.
"Oh," she said with clasped hands, "you look beautiful, Claud, dear."
"It's awful hot and uncomfortable," was Claud's response.
[Illustration: THE ARMOUR WAS UNFASTENED.]
"Yes, but just think! You're like a real knight now, and no one would
be able to hurt you, if you had a fight. Who do you feel like? Galahad
or Lancelot?"
"Sh—sh! Here's some one coming!" cried Donald.
Away he and Gypsy scampered back to their beds, and Claud stepped
behind the curtain.
It was only Miss Gubbins. Having left Victor to have a smoke, she was
coming up to her own set of rooms. Claud held his breath while she went
by. Though he was sorely tempted to show himself, he refrained from
doing so, as he knew in that case his plan would be frustrated. Time
passed very slowly. Donald and Gypsy did not return to him, and his
shoulders and arms were aching from the heavy weight of his armour.
"It isn't much fun, after all," was his rueful thought.
And then at last he heard his brother's voice in the hall, and the
quick, heavy tread up the staircase.
Opening the curtain, he strode out.
"Who goes there?"
The challenge was not given in such gruff, manly tones as was planned.
If truth must out, it was a very thin quavering treble squeak, and
Victor was not in the least alarmed. For a minute he stood still,
regarding the queer little figure in front of him with some amusement;
then in a very determined tone he said:
"This will never do. I can't have my old armour walking over the house
in this style. I must string it up again, and drive a nail through the
helmet to make it secure."
Before Claud knew where he was, he found himself tucked under Victor's
arm and being carried downstairs as if he were a mere parcel.
He was too proud to call out, and the rapid movement through the air so
bewildered him, that it was not till he fancied he actually felt a cord
being tied round his neck, and expected to be slung up on the wall the
next minute, that all his courage deserted him.
Then Victor heard a piteous little muffled cry out of the old visor:
"Oh, please let me out! I won't do it again, I promise! Please undo me,
and let me go out!"
But Victor was not so easily persuaded.
"I'll tie you up here, whoever you are, and there you shall stay till I
choose to release you."
Poor Claud found he was being secured effectually to an old stone
pillar in the outer hall, and then, whistling unconcernedly, his
step-brother pursued his way upstairs, and he was left alone in the
darkness.
This was turning the tables on him with a vengeance! The servants'
hall was too far off to hear his muffled cries for help; he ached
from the heavy, cumbersome weight of the armour, and he longed with
all his heart to be safe in his own little bed. He wondered if Donald
would come to his rescue, but he would not think of looking for him
downstairs, and poor Claud quite expected to be left there all night.
It seemed to be hours to him before he saw, through the dimly-lighted
hall, the figure of his brother descending the stairs.
But he was liberated at last, and emerged from his knightly covering, a
tearful, woe-begone little figure.
"Now off to bed with you, and let this be the last prank with any of
the armour here!"
Claud crept up to bed, quite cured of his love of intimidating any
"grown-up," but with less love than ever for the one who had outdone
him.