A NEW LADDER.
John and Betty started rather unwillingly on their task. It seemed
sadly dull to walk across several fields under a burning sun merely to
deliver a message for Madge, while she was enjoying an afternoon among
the Churchbury shops. Of course they were at perfect liberty to stay
playing in the Eagle's Nest as long as they liked. But somehow they
did not care to linger there by themselves. Without Madge's
substantial protection the shade of the spreading beech-trees seemed
more gloomy, and the distance from the house greater, even than usual.
Besides, when Madge was not present to remind them of the laws of
trespass, they could not help feeling as if Mrs. Howard might pounce
upon them at any moment and drag them over the wall to her darkest
cellars. So they only intended just to give their message to Lewis if
he appeared, and then to hurry back to those little gardens of which
they were so fond, where there was always something to be done, and no
fear of being kidnapped.
However, everything turned out as differently as possible to what they
had expected. No sooner had they climbed on to the Eagle's Nest than
they heard a low whistle, and looking down saw Lewis gliding along on
his side of the wall with the stealthy tread of an Indian on an enemy's
trail. He was a thin boy, with a white face, and always looked over
his shoulder as if he expected some foe to be coming up behind him.
"Madge can't come. She had to go to Churchbury shopping. She told us
to tell you," said Betty, leaning down from her perch and speaking as
low as she could. The children at Beechgrove shouted so much when they
were at home, that it was always a great effort to them to lower their
voices. Lewis, on the contrary, had the art of carrying on a long
conversation all in whispers, it seemed natural to him.
"All right! Never mind. We can do just as well without her," was the
unexpected answer.
Betty looked puzzled. "Shall I give her any message from you about
Saturday?" Betty said, preparing to leave the Eagle's Nest.
"What are you in such a hurry to be off for?" cried Lewis, rather
louder than usual. "Aren't you going to stop and talk?"
"But Madge isn't here, and--"
"Oh, bother Madge!" interrupted Lewis. "You and John aren't her
slaves, are you? Can't we have a bit of fun by ourselves for once,
without having her interfering and trying to manage everything? I
often wonder you two stand it! I know I wouldn't!"
"But I thought you and Madge were such friends!" said Betty, much
bewildered by the strangeness of this declaration.
"She thinks you don't care to speak to us. Only to her, because she is
older," chimed in John.
"Well, that's just where she makes a mistake," said Lewis roughly. "I
can't abide girls who think they are so grand, and are always ordering
other people about! Why, to hear her talk of this Eagle's Nest one
would believe she made it all herself, and I daresay you and John
worked just as hard as she did."
Now until this moment it had never struck Betty and John as strange
that Madge should take the lead in everything. She was the oldest,
biggest, and strongest of the three; and if she usually had her own way
about everything, it had only seemed natural to the others that this
should be so. Besides, she took all the trouble of making plans for
them, and they really had much more fun under her guidance than they
would have had alone. So it was quite a new view to them that they
were oppressed, but when it had once been put into their heads they
began to think that perhaps they had something to complain of after all.
"Now you won't be such silly sneaks as to go and tell Madge everything
I have been saying?" observed Lewis rather anxiously when he noticed
what a serious impression his words were making. "If you are such
babies as that I shall never speak to you again. And I have not been
saying any harm either, you know." He was beginning to fear, from the
twins' solemn faces, that they would go home and repeat his words to
Madge. "Only I have always thought you two looked such jolly little
things, if your sister would give you a chance of being spoken to, or
played with," he added.
All this was excessively flattering coming from a big boy of fourteen,
and after some more remarks of the sort Betty and John began to feel
that they were very fine people, who had always, rather unjustly, been
kept in the background by their elder sister. For the first time in
their lives they looked upon Madge as a tyrant.
"I should like to come up there and play with you," continued Lewis.
"Only the wall is rather too high for me to climb now that the ladder
has gone. Oh, I have a good idea! Capital! The very thing! Why
didn't we think of it before, I wonder?"
"What is it?" cried the twins. "What have you thought of?"
Lewis did not answer, but turned away and ran quickly to the shed where
Jack had been shut up. Presently he came out again, dragging some iron
railings, which with considerable trouble he got as far as the
overhanging boughs of the beech-tree.
"There's a ladder for you!" he exclaimed proudly, as he propped the
railings against the wall.
"It's splendid! Quite splendid!" shouted the twins, forgetting in
their excitement how near they were to the terrible house with the
cellar.
"Hush! Hush!" whispered Lewis. "If you make such a noise we shall be
caught, and all our fun stopped. And it's not quite perfect either.
Not high enough. See!"
In point of fact the top bar of the railings was only five feet from
the ground, so that it did not reach more than half-way up the wall.
It was very nice as far as it went, but more of it was badly wanted.
However, Lewis was not easily discouraged. He returned to the shed,
where there were several more railings, and dragged out another. "They
are dreadfully heavy," he said; "but I don't care. I shall go on
fetching them until I get enough to reach the top of the wall. I know
there are a heap of them in the shed. They are kept there when they
are not being used to divide the field."
"Take care you don't tumble! Oh, that's beautiful! I do wish we could
help you!" cried the twins, looking on in the highest admiration while
Lewis slowly pushed and pulled one railing on the top of another
against the wall. Then he tied them together with some bits of string
out of his pocket, and proceeded to mount. It was not a very steady
ladder, but with the wall to lean against there was small fear of
falling, and when near the top of it Lewis could reach the hands that
were eagerly stretched out to help him. In another moment he was
sitting on the Eagle's Nest.
"This is a goodish sort of tree," he remarked, looking round with a
patronizing air. "Very easy to climb, of course--"
"Oh, but I can go much higher than these boughs by the wall!"
interrupted Betty. "So high that my feet are where your head is now."
"That's not much," said Lewis scornfully. "Girls never can climb much.
They just flop about, and catch their frocks in all the branches, and
get giddy, and cry to be helped down again!"
Betty flushed hotly. "You are talking nonsense!" she shrieked. "Silly
nonsense! I can climb much higher than John; and as for crying--"
Her remarks were promptly cut short by a hand being roughly pressed
over her mouth. "Hold your tongue!" whispered Lewis. "Unless you wish
old Mother Howard and her slave-drivers to be after us!"
At this terrible threat Betty looked nervously towards the brick house.
But there was nothing to be seen in that direction except the quiet old
cows in the orchard below. She was so reassured by seeing them chewing
the cud, as if nothing dreadful could possibly happen, that she
regained sufficient courage to remark defiantly that after all Mrs.
Howard did not seem a very formidable person.
"That shows all you know about it!" replied Lewis. "I can tell you a
very different tale. If you two will promise faithfully not to say a
single word of what I tell you to anybody--not to Madge, or your nurse,
or anybody,--then I will tell you something that nobody else knows.
Only it's a secret, you must remember,--a dead secret."
This was very solemn work. Betty and John glanced at each other, both
longing to know the secret, and yet a little afraid of the conditions
that had been imposed.
"Mightn't we just tell Madge if she promises not to repeat it?" Betty
ventured to say.
"Certainly not! We don't want Madge poking her interfering nose into
everything, do we?" replied Lewis rudely. "Just make up your minds
whether you want to hear a most terrible and extraordinary thing, or
not, for I can't wait much longer. But if I don't tell you to-day I
sha'n't breathe a word of it another time, so it's no good teasing me
again."
This last remark decided Betty. She was very curious by nature, and
could not bear to miss any piece of news that promised to be
interesting.
"I think I must hear the secret, although I would much rather tell
Madge about it," she said in a hesitating voice. "And if you don't
like to promise, John, you must go a little way off and stop your ears."
But John was not equal to so much self-restraint. If Betty had
resisted the temptation of hearing the secret he would have done so
too, but he could not possibly let her enjoy the advantage of knowing
more than he did. "I promise not to tell," he grunted.
"Ah, that's all very well!" exclaimed Lewis; "but I must see if you two
babies can keep a secret. Just put out your hands. Now I am going to
pinch your little fingers, and if you cry out it means that you can't
be trusted." And pinch he did, and very hard too, but the twins
bravely clenched their teeth and said nothing.
When Lewis had teased them to his heart's content, he began his
wonderful tale by whispering in a mysterious voice:
"Do you know what Mrs. Howard really is?"
"An old lady," replied Betty very naturally. "Your aunt, perhaps? No?
But she looks rather like it, doesn't she?"
"Ah! but she is something quite different really," said Lewis. And
after pausing a short time to heighten Betty's curiosity, he added:
"She is a witch!"
The twins started back, hardly able to believe their ears. "But there
aren't any witches now!" they cried. "Besides, there aren't such
things really. They used to be burned, but Miss Thompson says most
likely they were only poor old women who couldn't hurt anybody."
"I don't care a bit what Miss Thompson or anybody says," replied Lewis.
"Mrs. Howard is an old witch, you can tell that by the black cat that
follows her everywhere. That's a sure sign."
Betty hardly knew what to say, for she had once seen a picture of a
witch, and there was undoubtedly a black cat crouching in the corner of
it.
"You noticed the way she shook her head, I dare say?" continued Lewis,
who was delighted by the awestruck looks of his two companions. "Well,
she is muttering spells when she does that. She has the power to
destroy things if she says the right words. Any morning I may wake up
and find the house changed into a heap of dust, or perhaps be struck
dead myself."
It seemed impossible that such things should be going on almost within
sight of Miss Thompson's schoolroom window. And yet, judging by the
gravity of Lewis's face, he was speaking in most sober earnest. John
and Betty pressed tighter together, and took hold of each other's hands.
"I hope for your sakes that the old witch won't find out you've been
talking to me," continued Lewis solemnly.
"Why what would she do?" Betty ventured to ask.
"That would depend on what sort of a temper she happened to be in," was
the reassuring reply.
And then Lewis proceeded to tell such terrible tales about Mrs.
Howard's power and malignity, that the poor twins longed to be safely
back at home, out of sight of that weird brick house, whose commonplace
walls concealed such dreadful deeds of cruelty.