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СКАЧАТЬ while the others attended to Dora, who presently ceased to yell.

      Suddenly it struck Oswald that the High-born also had ceased to yell. He looked at it, and could hardly believe the glad tidings of his faithful eyes. With bated breath he hastened back to the sheep-house.

      The others turned on him, full of reproaches about the meal-worms and Dora, but he answered without anger.

      "Shut up," he said, in a whisper of imperial command. "Can't you see it's gone to sleep?"

      As exhausted as if they had all taken part in all the events of a very long Athletic Sports, the youthful Bastables and their friends dragged their weary limbs back across the fields. Oswald was compelled to go on holding the titled infant, for fear it should wake up if it changed hands, and begin to yell again. Dora's flannelette petticoat had been got off somehow—how I do not seek to inquire—and the Secret was covered with it. The others surrounded Oswald as much as possible, with a view to concealment if we met Mrs. Pettigrew. But the coast was clear. Oswald took the Secret up into his bedroom. Mrs. Pettigrew doesn't come there much; it's too many stairs.

      With breathless precaution Oswald laid it down on his bed. It sighed, but did not wake. Then we took it in turns to sit by it and see that it did not get up and fling itself out of bed, which, in one of its furious fits, it would just as soon have done as not.

      We expected Albert's uncle every minute.

      At last we heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out and saw that there he was talking to a distracted-looking man on a piebald horse—one of the miller's horses.

      A shiver of doubt coursed through our veins. We could not remember having done anything wrong at the miller's. But you never know. And it seemed strange his sending a man up on his own horse. But when we had looked a bit longer our fears went down and our curiosity got up. For we saw that the distracted one was a gentleman.

      Presently he rode off, and Albert's uncle came in. A deputation met him at the door—all the boys and Dora, because the baby was her idea.

      "We've found something," Dora said, "and we want to know whether we may keep it."

      The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very extra anxious to keep it after we had heard how much and how long it could howl. Even Noël had said he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora said it only cried because it was sleepy, but we reflected that it would certainly be sleepy once a day, if not oftener.

      "What is it?" said Albert's uncle. "Let's see this treasure-trove. Is it a wild beast?"

      "Come and see," said Dora, and we led him to our room.

      Alice turned down the pink flannelette petticoat with silly pride, and showed the youthful heir fatly and pinkly sleeping.

      "A baby!" said Albert's uncle. "The Baby! Oh, my cat's alive!"

      That is an expression which he uses to express despair unmixed with anger.

      "Where did you?—but that doesn't matter. We'll talk of this later."

      He rushed from the room, and in a moment or two we saw him mount his bicycle and ride off.

      Quite shortly he returned with the distracted horseman.

      It was his baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife were the lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid was a girl from the village.

      She said she only left the Baby five minutes while she went to speak to her sweetheart, who was gardener at the Red House. But we knew she left it over an hour, and nearly two.

      I never saw any one so pleased as the distracted horseman.

      When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was the prey of gypsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the Baby, and actually thanked us.

      But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business. But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and most of the others, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business all their lives than mind a baby for a single hour.

      If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of sleepiness you can have no idea what its screams are like.

      If you have been through such a scene you will understand how we managed to bear up under having no baby to adopt.

      Oswald insisted on having the whole thing written in the Golden Deed book. Of course his share could not be put in without telling about Dora's generous adopting of the forlorn infant outcast, and Oswald could not and cannot forget that he was the one who did get that baby to sleep.

      What a time Mr. and Mrs. Distracted Horseman must have of it, though—especially now they've sacked the nursemaid.

      If Oswald is ever married—I suppose he must be some day—he will have ten nurses to each baby. Eight is not enough. We know that because we tried, and the whole eight of us were not enough for the needs of that deserted infant, who was not so extra high-born after all.

      Hunting the Fox

       Table of Contents

      It is idle to expect every one to know everything in the world without being told. If we had been brought up in the country we should have known that it is not done—to hunt the fox in August. But in the Lewisham Road the most observing boy does not notice the dates when it is proper to hunt foxes.

      And there are some things you cannot bear to think that anybody would think you would do; that is why I wish to say plainly at the very beginning that none of us would have shot a fox on purpose even to save our skins. Of course, if a man were at bay in a cave, and had to defend girls from the simulaerous attack of a herd of savage foxes it would be different. A man is bound to protect girls and take care of them—they can jolly well take care of themselves really it seems to me—still, this is what Albert's uncle calls one of the "rules of the game," so we are bound to defend them and fight for them to the death, if needful.

      Denny knows a quotation which says:

      "What dire offence from harmless causes springs,

       What mighty contests rise from trefoil things."

      He says this means that all great events come from three things—three-fold, like the clover or trefoil, and the causes are always harmless. Trefoil is short for three-fold.

      There were certainty three things that led up to the adventure which is now going to be told you. The first was our Indian uncle coming down to the country to see us. The second was Denny's tooth. The third was only our wanting to go hunting; but if you count it in it makes the thing about the trefoil come right. And all these causes were harmless.

      It is a flattering thing to say, and it was not Oswald who said it, but Dora. She said she was certain our uncle missed us, and that he felt he could no longer live without seeing his dear ones (that was us).

      Anyway, he came down, without warning, which is one of the few bad habits that excellent Indian man has, and this habit has ended in unpleasantness more than once, as when we played Jungles.

      However, СКАЧАТЬ