He was performing a rapid toilet.
Presently he looked up at me from his shoe-laces.
"I taught her that whistle," he observed, complacently.
"Whom?" I asked.
"Why, Madge--Madge Chantrey," he said.
"You seem to have found an apt pupil."
"Rather."
"But I hope," I spoke severely, "I trust, Tommy, that you haven't taught
her to play truant."
He looked at me, cheekily; then he vanished through the gate.
"Happy dreams," he said, "and, I say, don't snore _quite_ so loudly, you
know."
And I heard him singing as he ran through the wood.
Said Madge, from the first stile, on the right:
"I managed it beautifully; she was reading some of those stupid rhymes
by the poet--only I oughtn't to call them names, because he's a friend
of yours--and I watched her getting sleepier and sleepier, and then I
came through the little gate behind the greenhouse and simply ran all
the way, and, I expect, she's fast asleep, and I wonder why grown-up
people always go to sleep in the very best part of all the day."
"I think it's their indigestions, you know," said Tommy thoughtfully.
"But they never eat anything all day--only huge big feeds at night."
"I think everybody's a _little_ sleepy after lunch."
"I'm not."
"Not after two helps of jam roll?"
"How do you know I had two helps?"
"Never mind," said Tommy, then.
"See that spadger," he cried suddenly.
"Got him, no--missed him, by Jove."
The sparrow was twittering, mockingly, behind the hedge, and a
bright-eyed rabbit scuttled into safety.
"Let's go through the park," cried Tommy.
"I'll show you a ripping little path, right by the house, where there's
a cave I made before--no one knows it but father and I, an' you can go
right by it, an' never see it. Come on."
They scrambled over the iron railings that bound the neat, though
modest, domain surrounding Camslove Grange. Through the tall tree trunks
they could see the old house with its rough battlements and extended
wings. In front of it the trim lawns sloped down to the stream, while
behind, the Italian garden was cut out of a wild tangle of shrubs and
brushwood.
Into this Tommy plunged, with the unerring steps of long acquaintance,
holding back the branches, as Madge followed close upon his heels.
Once he turned, and looked back eagerly into her eyes.
"We're just by the path now--Isn't it grand?"
"Rather," she said.
Presently, with much labour, they reached a microscopical track through
the underwood.
"There," observed Tommy, with the proud air of a proprietor, "Didn't I
tell you?"
"No one could possibly find it, I should think," said Madge.
"Rather not. Let's go to the cave."
Followed some further scrambling, and Tommy drew back the bushes
triumphantly.
"See--" he began, but the words died upon his lips, for there, standing
all unabashed upon this sacred ground, was a boy about his own age.
Tommy stammered and grew silent, looking amazedly at the stranger. He
was a pale boy with dark eyes, and a Jewish nose.
"You are trespassing," he said coolly.
Tommy gasped.
"Who--who are you?" he asked at last.
"I tell you you are trespassing."
Tommy flushed.
"I'm not," he said. "I--I belong here."
The other boy gave a shout.
"Father," he cried, "Here's some trespassers."
Tommy stood his ground, surveying the intruder with some contempt, while
Madge wide-eyed held his arm.
There were footsteps through the bushes, and a tall stout man in a
panama hat came into view.
"Hullo," he said, "This is private property, you know."
Tommy looked at him gravely.
"I don't understand--I--I belong here, you know."
The big man smiled.
"You're a native, are you?" he said cheerfully. "Well, you're a pretty
healthy looking specimen--but this place here is mine--for the time, at
any rate."
"It was my father's," said Tommy, with a strange huskiness in his
throat.
"Don't know anything about that--got it from the agents for six
years--like to see the deed, heh?" and he chuckled, a little
ponderously.
Tommy looked downcast and hesitant, and the big man turned to his son.
"Well, well," he said, "I guess they'll know better next time. Take 'em
down the drive, Ernie, and show 'em out decently."
The three walked silently down the old avenue.
At the gate, the pale boy turned to Tommy.
"Back my father's got more money than yours," he said.
Tommy's eyes swept him with a look of profound contempt, but a lump in
his throat forbade retort, and he turned away silent.
Madge, dear little woman, saw the sorrow in his eyes, and held her
peace, picking flowers from the bank as they walked slowly down the
path.
On a green spray a little way ahead a bird was singing full-throated and
joyous, but to Tommy its music was mockery.
He took a long aim and brought the little songster, warm and quivering,
on to the pathway in front of them.
As they came to it he kicked it aside, but Madge, stooping, lifted it
from the long grass and hid it, quite dead, in her frock.
The tears had risen to her eyes, and she was on the point of challenging
this seemingly wanton cruelty.
But there was something in Tommy's face that her eyes were quick to
notice, and she was silent.
Thus is tact so largely a matter of instinct.
And, in a minute, Tommy turned to her.
"I--I should jolly well like to--to kill that chap," he said.
Madge said nothing, fondling the warm little body that she held beneath
her pinafore.
As they turned the corner of the hedge, they came into the full flood of
the sunlight over the meadows, and Tommy smiled.
"I say, I'm awfully sorry we should have got turned out like that,
Madge, but I--I didn't know there was somebody else in there--an' that
I wasn't to go there, an' that."
"Never mind," said Madge, "let's come up home, and I'll show you my
cave--I've got one, too. It's not so good as yours, of course, because
you're a boy, but I think it's very pretty all the same, and it's
_almost_ as hard to get at."