AN EARLY CHASE.
The excitement of the goats' arrival quite put all thoughts of Lewis
Brand and his wonderful story out of the children's heads. Fortunately
the evenings were light and long, for there was a great deal to be done
before the two pets could be considered safely housed for the night.
Captain West objected to their remaining any longer in the stables as
he could not spare the room, so there was a great discussion about
where they could be shut up for the night. At last it was decided that
a railed-off corner of the cow-house, where calves generally lived,
would be very suitable, and in the daytime, of course, they could be
loose in the fields with the other animals. As they seemed rather
wild, it was safer to shut them up at night for fear of their wandering
away. So the children were at last persuaded to leave them for the
night, with a plentiful supply of fresh grass, in case they should wake
and feel hungry.
"What a lot of things have happened to-day!" exclaimed Betty when she
and Madge were both in bed, and Jane had left the room with her usual
piece of good advice to them to go to sleep at once. Two children
occupying beds in the same room were not very likely to take such a
sensible piece of advice, and in point of fact Madge and Betty often
talked away merrily for a long time. "Sometimes it seems as if nothing
happened for weeks, and to-day there are so many things I can hardly
remember them all," continued Betty. "Doesn't it seem a long time
since we let down the rope-ladder and that boy climbed into the Eagle's
Nest?"
"Yes. But do be quiet, I want to go to sleep," said Madge rather
crossly. She had been feeling so much happier since she had quite
forgotten Lewis Brand and the difficulties connected with him, that she
was not at all grateful for having the whole affair brought back to her
mind again.
But Betty could not leave the subject alone. "Do you think Lewis is a
nice boy?" she inquired. "I didn't like him at first, because he has
such a white face and hardly any eyebrows!"
"What a silly reason for not liking a person," said Madge. "As if they
could help their eyebrows!"
"I know it's silly," returned Betty humbly. "But don't you find it
very difficult to like people when they have nasty faces?"
"I never think about their faces," said Madge in a superior way. "If
they are jolly I like them soon enough, however ugly they are!"
"Oh, so do I!" exclaimed Betty, now rather ashamed of her criticisms as
she found that Madge considered them silly. "At first I thought he was
going to be rather proud and stuck-up because he was so much older than
we are, but afterwards he seemed very nice when we began to play. I
wonder if we shall ever see him again?"
"I'm sure I don't know! Let us go to sleep now, I'm tired of talking;"
and Madge burrowed so deeply under the bed-clothes that it was quite
impossible to carry on any sort of conversation with her.
Perhaps it was because Madge went to sleep rather early that evening
that she was enabled to wake proportionately early the following
morning. It was fairly light and fine, though not sunny. She got out
of bed and went to the window. Madge invariably looked out of the
window the first thing in the morning, but to-day she was rewarded by
seeing something that had never met her eyes before.
On the lawn, directly in front of the house, was a large flower-bed,
containing many roses of different colours. They were Mrs. West's
favourite flowers, and even when she could not go out, she enjoyed
seeing them from the drawing-room window. In the middle of this
flower-bed now stood Jack and Jill, cropping off and devouring dozens
of rose-buds with evident relish.
Madge rubbed her eyes and looked again. It was no dream, and there was
no possibility of a mistake. She had seen the goats safely shut into
the calves' house the night before, and here they were loose and
walking about the garden. She could not understand in the least how it
had happened; but nevertheless it was a fact. And, moreover, they were
eating her mother's favourite roses as fast as they could. She tapped
gently on the window-pane, but the goats took absolutely no notice. At
this rate there would not be a rose left by the time the gardener came
to work.
A great idea occurred to Madge. We know that she was rather
independent, as befitted the eldest of a family, and decidedly fond of
managing things her own way. So it presently came about that she
decided not to let the roses be eaten, and not to disturb anybody else,
but to drive Jack and Jill out of the garden all by herself. Perhaps
it seemed rather unkind not to wake Betty, who was sleeping quietly in
her little bed in the other corner of the room. However, she looked so
comfortable that it was almost a pity to disturb her, and after all she
was two years younger than Madge, and could not reasonably expect to do
exactly the same things as her elder sister. She would be very full of
reproaches when she woke up, but Madge resolved to risk a little
sisterly abuse sooner than permit anyone to share the glory of her
exploit.
It really does not take very long to dress if one omits all ornamental
additions, and dispenses with everything in the shape of a bath! Jack
and Jill had not time to do more than taste the succulent young shoots
of half a dozen rose-trees before Madge had crept downstairs and
quietly opened the front-door. Then with a half-suppressed shout of
battle she rushed towards them, waving a walking-stick which she had
the presence of mind to snatch up in passing through the hall. The
goats both gave a guilty start at the first sound, and then crossed the
lawn in a series of most amazing bounds. Madge afterwards compared
them to gigantic grasshoppers; and, indeed, as she panted hopelessly
behind them, she would scarcely have felt surprised if one of her
nimble pets had, with a higher leap than usual, suddenly perched on the
bough of a tree or the roof of a house!
Madge had often laughed at her father's little terrier, Snap, for
chasing the sparrows up and down the lawn in the vain hope of some day
catching them, but she soon began to realize that she had started on
quite as hopeless an enterprise herself. However rapidly she ran along
the paths, however stealthily she stalked behind the bushes, Jack and
Jill proved quicker and more artful. When, with untold trouble, she
had driven them into a corner, and was advancing with outstretched
hands to grasp their pert little horns, they would just toss their
heads, and without any apparent effort skip right over her shoulder and
be off half across the garden almost before she could turn round.
"I do believe I shall have to go back and fetch Betty after all,"
muttered Madge, when this sort of thing had gone on so long that she
was fairly tired out. "Not that she can run half as fast as I can, her
legs are so short! But she could help. I really can't be expected to
do all the work by myself!"
Madge was getting tired, and consequently cross. So, rather funnily,
she was beginning to feel it quite a grievance that nobody had come out
to help her to drive the goats, forgetting that it was entirely her own
wish to undertake the job alone. As she somewhat sullenly walked
towards the house, she prepared several severe speeches to be addressed
to Betty on the selfishness of lying in bed and leaving her sister to
do all the work. But just as she was getting into a state of
considerable indignation, out of the open front-door walked her father.
Captain West had evidently dressed in a hurry like his daughter. In
point of fact he had been suddenly wakened by one of Madge's
involuntary cries, for though she had every intention of being very
quiet, she could not altogether suppress an occasional shout when the
goats were unusually irritating. He had started up and looked into the
passage. All seemed quiet, but a gleam of light in the hall below
showed him that the front-door was open. Between three and four
o'clock in the morning this was a fairly peculiar circumstance. So,
returning to his room he hastily slipped on the first clothes he came
across and proceeded downstairs, to find out who was about at that
early hour.
"Hullo, Madge! What on earth are you doing?" he exclaimed, as he
suddenly found himself face to face with his eldest daughter.
Madge explained the whole story in rather a confused, disjointed sort
of way. It was not at all the triumphal return to the house that she
had planned. If things had gone as she intended she would easily have
caught Jack and Jill; they would have come to eat a little grass out of
her hand, and then she would gently but firmly have led them back to
the calves' house. Here she would have secured the door more skilfully
than her elders had done the previous evening, so that there would have
been no further possibility of escape for the prisoners. And then she
would have strolled quietly back to the house, and explained to an
admiring audience at breakfast-time what precautions she had taken for
the safety of the garden while the more negligent members of the family
slept. It was certainly very disappointing to be treated by her father
as a naughty child instead of a heroine, and scolded for her stupidity
in running out on the wet grass in thin shoes.
"But I couldn't expect it to be wet in the summer," replied Madge, who
would seldom admit that she was in the wrong without an argument.
"Don't talk nonsense!" said Captain West severely. He would play with
the children all day, and readily forgive them any damage they did
through carelessness, but he never could stand their trying to argue
that wrong was right. "You know as much about dew as I do," he
continued; "and I have put on thick boots while you have been running
about for an hour in dripping wet shoes."
It was quite impossible to deny this, for Madge's feet presented a most
miserable appearance. She had been running through the shrubberies,
where the long wet grass reached up to her knees, and her kid shoes
were also scratched and muddy.
"If I go in and put on thick boots may I come out again and help you to
drive the goats?" inquired Madge anxiously.
Seeing how very wet she was, Captain West did not dare grant this
request, but ordered her straight back to bed. With many a grumble
Madge returned to her room and threw all her clothes in a heap on the
floor. Then she slowly climbed into bed, protesting to herself that
she should be sure to lie awake until it was time to get up, in spite
of which resolve she fell asleep in about two minutes.
Whether Jack and Jill thought that Captain West did not look like a
person to be trifled with, or whether they were really getting a little
tired of their prolonged frolic, it is impossible to say. At all
events, soon after he appeared they allowed themselves to be quietly
driven to the end of the garden and out through the door into the
farmyard, where they remained until Barton came to milk the cows in the
morning.