“HURRAH! HURRAH!”
“Oh! hurrah! Andrew, hurrah! They’re off at last! Did you think that
they would ever start? Well, if this isn’t the rarest bit of good luck
that ever was!”
And, standing out in the broad noon-day sunshine on the grass plait in
front of the farm-house, Diana pirouetted like an accomplished dervish.
The headache that was on the road to her at breakfast must surely have
lost its way.
“What a blessing that Gaston has gone too,” said Andrew. “I was in a
blue fright that he wouldn’t, after all, just because we wanted him to
go so much.”
“Yes, but I’ll tell you what’s even better,” rejoined Di. “Nellie’s
going over to Spelmonden.”
“What for?”
“There’s an obliging old woman there who’s broken her arm or her neck, I
forget which,” said Di, “and I heard Mrs. Busson tell Libbie that Nellie
was not to hurry home. If she was back by supper-time it would do quite
well.”
“Splendid! She’ll be out of the way at any rate.”
“Yes,” went on Di, “and so you see there will only be Libbie indoors,
and Polly, who----”
“Who doesn’t count,” put in Andrew, “for she’s always running after the
pigs or the poultry, or gathering things in the garden.”
“Exactly; and Libbie is going to be busy all the afternoon in the
brew-house tapping the last barrel of cowslip wine.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Yes. I heard her arranging with Mrs. Busson how she would bottle it
to-day. When she is once in there she’ll be safely out of hearing of
anything that we may do.”
“Hadn’t we better soon begin?” suggested Andrew. “You see we don’t know
how long it may take.”
“We must watch Nellie off the premises first,” said Di. “We’ll go and
sit under the walnut-tree near the stack-yard. We shall be able to see
the back-door splendidly from there without seeming to be watching.”
“All right,” assented Andrew.
“You’re quite sure that you have got all your tools ready, Andrew?”
enquired Di, presently, as the two young conspirators stretched
themselves on the short grass in the shade of the venerable walnut.
“No fear,” laughed Andrew; “I think these instruments ought to suffice,
even for our undertaking,” and he put his hand into his jacket pocket
and rattled the chisel, hammer and gimlet which lay concealed there.
“That sounds like business, eh?”
“And I’ve got two big knives,” announced Di, triumphantly.
“Knives? But what for?” cried Andrew.
“They may be very useful, very useful indeed,” repeated Di, with great
emphasis.
“What do you mean?” asked Andrew, nervously.
“Well, you see,” said Di, slowly, “we’re not quite sure what or _who_ we
may find inside this mysterious chamber; anyway I think that we may as
well be armed, both of us.”
“But Di,” said Andrew, very distinctly alarmed now, “you don’t really
suppose that there’s anyone really alive in there?”
“I’m not so sure. I heard Libbie telling that man--a man who came about
some cheeses, I think--that there were very odd customers inside there.
Yes, really that was what she said.”
“What did she say, tell me exactly,” insisted Andrew.
“Oh, well, it was when Libbie and the man were coming downstairs from
the cheese-room,” said Di. “The man asked--he was joking, you know--if
she dealt in cobwebs as well as cheese, for he had never seen such a
sight as over that door.”
“Yes, and what did Libbie say?” asked Andrew, breathlessly.
“Oh, she said the spiders had had a good time there, for the door hadn’t
been opened for fifty years or more.”
“And didn’t the man ask why?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t hear Libbie’s answer; only when the man said,
‘Well, if that’s so I’d have a try and see what I could make out of it.’
Then I heard Libbie say: ‘Ah! that’s all very pretty, but I expect we’d
find some rare awkward customers to deal with on the other side of the
door.’”
“What could she mean?” speculated Andrew. “It is odd that no one will
open that door.”
“Libbie told the man that the missus wouldn’t have it tried, not for any
sake,” said Di.
“What can it be?” repeated Andrew, with a very long face.
“I did ask the little farm boy,” proceeded Di, “what all that odd
rumbling noise in the cheese-room meant, and he looked dreadfully
scared. He said that was what he’d never been able to find out, but
people did say it was haunted by the ghosts of some wicked smugglers who
lived long ago at the farm; in fact,” went on Di, drawing largely on her
own imagination now, “from what Henry said I believe that the room is
crammed full of all sorts of beautiful stolen goods, so that no one has
ever been able to get the door open. Oh! Andrew, won’t it be grand if
we’re the very first people who have ever been brave enough to force our
way in?”
“Yes,” said Andrew, but his assent was pitched in a less jubilant key.
“I believe you’re getting into a fright already,” sneered Di.
“No I’m not; only I can’t help wishing that there was a real window, so
that we might get a peep at what is inside, before actually going in,”
said Andrew.
For though this mysterious room was furnished with a door and a chimney,
it had no window. There was only a sham painted semblance of one set in
the house wall, to match, as best it might, the other real ones.
“You see,” continued Andrew, “one hasn’t the least idea what one may see
when the door bursts open.”
“Or what may see us,” laughed Diana.
“Oh, don’t,” cried Andrew; “that’s too horrid.”
“Nonsense,” said Di. “There wouldn’t be much real courage wanted in the
world, if people could always see exactly what sort of danger they were
going to face. Why, you silly Andrew, anyone could win a page in the
book of golden deeds at that rate.”
“But you don’t think, Di, that Mrs. Busson will be very angry?”
“Angry! why, she’ll go on her knees with gratitude,” cried Di.
“Will she really, do you think?”
“Go on her knees, I say, and so will Mr. Busson, and Libbie, and
everyone in the whole place, I expect,” asserted Di, trying hard to make
herself believe in the probability of this crowd of grateful
genuflectors, who were to flock round Andrew and herself, with the
opened room as their background. “They’ll be awfully grateful.”
“It’ll be a great score over the others,” said Andrew.
“Yes, won’t it,” said Di.
“It will be such a sell for Jack and Phil,” remarked Andrew further.
“But time’s precious,” said Di, “I think we ought to be stirring.”
“But suppose Libbie hears us going upstairs,” began Andrew.
“Oh, you Master Much-afraid,” cried Di, impatiently, “suppose you run
and hide yourself with Mr. Despondency, in the pages of ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress’; won’t you give me your tools, and you go and play with
Marygold’s doll in the Cuckoo-copse?”
“It isn’t that I’m the least afraid for myself,” began Andrew, “but--”
But Di cut him short. “Now, look here, don’t be such a coward, and
listen to me. _I_ can get upstairs quietly enough, but you’re such an
idiot that I can’t depend on you for doing anything decently.”
“That’s cheek,” pouted Andrew.
“So listen,” continued Di, “Libbie has just gone into the brew-house, to
bottle the cowslip wine, so I’ll go in there and tease and worry her so
much that she won’t have any ears to spare for what you may be doing.
Meanwhile, take off your boots, and creep upstairs till you reach _the_
door. When you’re once there you can’t do much harm, because you see the
room isn’t over the brew-house, and the walls are so fearfully thick, I
don’t believe that even a dancing elephant could make itself heard
downstairs.”
“But you will promise to come up soon,” said Andrew, terribly afraid of
being left too long within reach of this dread, undiscovered territory,
“I can’t stop up there too long, all by myself.”
“I’ll come as soon as I’ve worried Libbie into wanting to be rid of me,”
said wicked Di. “I’ll make her feel thankful to leave me to my own
devices. But don’t you begin to do anything till I come.”
“Oh, no, that I won’t,” said Andrew so fervently that Di felt sure that
on this occasion, at any rate, Andrew might be trusted to keep his word.
“Very well, then, I’m off to begin operations,” said Di, springing to
her feet. Tilting her hat over her eyes, and walking with a very
leisurely step, Di took her way to the back regions of the farmhouse.
Poor Libbie, with her head and hands engaged in her bottling process,
fell an easy prey to her wiles. If the truth were known, Libbie had been
bitterly disappointed, and so had Mrs. Busson, by Andrew’s and Diana’s
refusal to join the fair-going party. They had reckoned so confidently
on securing a quiet, undisturbed afternoon for the “flasking and
cellaring” of the cowslip wine, as Libbie termed it.
“Headaches, indeed! Stuff and nonsense,” she had said, “it’s just their
_contrariness_, and that’s all. I’d like to give them a good dose of
senna tea each, and lock them up in a dark room.”
So, when Di appeared in the doorway of the brew-house, she found exactly
the kind of reception she would have chosen.
“Now I can’t have you worrying in here, Miss Di,” said Libbie, “for as
you can see for yourself, there isn’t standing room for a well grown
rat,” and she pointed to the regiment of dusty bottles with which the
door was crowded. “Why dear me! I thought you had a bad headache. What
ever has become of it so soon?”
“It never was a very bad one, besides I don’t make a fuss about things
when I’m ill. I never do,” said Di, forgetting that _never_ is a long
word.
“Well, I can’t have either you or Master Andrew bothering in here, this
afternoon,” said Libbie, “it’ll be your own faults, if you find it dull,
but you must amuse yourselves as best you can. Only don’t go getting
into mischief. I’ve got my work cut out for me, here.”
“And so have I,” thought naughty Di, only she took care not to say so.
“Very well,” she answered aloud, “then if you won’t let me help you
Libbie, I’ll go now.”
And very slowly, Diana turned away and recrossed the threshold.