The children could not follow this.
They finished their lunch, washed their cups and plates up in the stream; then set to work picking strawberries again.
Later on they had an early tea before they started to walk home. And as they were in the middle of it who should come riding by but the Pirate. He recognised the children and rode up to them, dismounting, and talking to Aunt Alice for some minutes. Then she asked him if he would like a cup of tea, and he said he would love it. So he tied his horse to a tree stump, and sat down upon the ground with them. The little girls chattered to him freely; and he told them some very funny stories about people and animals he had met abroad. He stayed quite a long time; and agreed with the children that meals in the open air tasted much better than in the house.
"Give me a tent and a gun and a fishing rod," he said, "and I would want nothing else if sport were good."
"Have you ever had a tent?" asked Hope.
"Yes, I went a shooting expedition in Africa with two Kaffirs," he said; "but that journey ended disastrously for me. I had to swim a river and couldn't change my clothes, and had a bout of rheumatic fever which nearly finished me, and has left me a crock to the end of my days!"
A shadow came over his face. They all felt very sorry for him, and then he laughed but not very happily.
"So that's why I funk at home, instead of taking my place in the fighting line," he said.
"There's a lot of hard fighting being done at home," said Aunt Alice quietly.
He looked at her, and when their eyes met, they understood each other. The young man was not the only one who was doing his duty at home without getting any praise or honour for it. Aunt Alice was doing the same, and she knew that it was hard work sometimes.